Reaping the Harvest
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Daryl's loyalty is to the Hilltop, and Carol's to the Kingdom, but the relationship that blooms between them will draw both camps closer together. It's a good thing, too, because they're all about to discover an unusual community...Humor, adventure, suspense, romance, family drama. Caryl. Rosita/OC. Ezekiel/OC. Maggie. Judith. Tara.
1. Chapter 1

Six Hilltop children play hopscotch on a crude grid carved in the dirt. Daryl half watches them as he sits on the bottom stair of the front porch of the historic mansion, but mostly he's concentrating on whittling an arrow. He still has plenty of pre-manufactured ones from his last supply run, but he knows one day they'll get broken or lost, and eventually he'll have to make his own. He might as well start practicing now.

A stone thuds against the tip of his boot, and he hears a long "Uh...ohhhhh!" When he looks up, Glenn, Jr. is standing a few feet away, his brown eyes wide, one finger nervously lodged in his mouth.

"It's okay," Judith tells the toddler, looming a foot above him and putting a tiny hand on his tinier shoulder. "My Daryl doesn't bite."

Daryl picks the rock up and tosses it back toward Glenn. It skids to a stop just in front of the toe of the leather moccasins Carol sewed and brought to the Hilltop for the boy's second birthday two months ago. Judith picks up the rock, takes Glenn hand, and says, "Throw ON the board." She tugs him back to the hopscotch game and patiently attempts to show him how to play.

The stairs creak behind him, and Daryl glances over as Maggie settles down beside him. She drapes an arm over her bent knees and looks out over the gardens, the greenhouse, the smokehouse, and the barns. "I guess Rick was right not to kill Negan after all. It was Negan's plan that kept the Whisperers from destroying all this."

A growl gathers in Daryl's throat. "How'n hell can ya forgive 'em?"

"Who says I have?" she asks. "But Negan's dead and gone now, and he died saving this place."

"Rick and 'Chonne – _they's_ the ones died saving this place."

"We don't _know_ that they're dead," Maggie insists. "They might have gotten away in that helicopter we saw flying off."

"And _not_ come back? For almost a _year_?"

"Not been _able_ to come back, maybe," she says, but her voice is defeated, as though she doesn't believe her own words.

His jaw twitching, Daryl flicks the blade across the stick and peels the skin off the branch. The knife cuts deep - too deep - and he tosses the stick forcefully against the rail.

Maggie ignores his fit and asks, "Are you going to the harvest festival?"

"Ain't exactly a festival kind of guy."

"But you'll get to see Carol."

He picks up another stick from a pile on the ground at the edge of the staircase and goes to work carving it. He's not so sure he wants to see Carol in that world that's _hers_ and not _theirs_. The prison was _theirs_. But the prison is long gone.

 _You can come to the Kingdom, too, you know_ , Carol told him. But she had to know it wasn't true. He couldn't come to the Kingdom. He would be a _leper_ in the Kingdom - all those good-mannered people walking around, well groomed and wearing clean clothes, tending flower gardens, playing flutes and violins beneath gazebos, offering a regal how-do-you-do at every passing.

At least here at the Hilltop they play fiddles instead of violins, harmonicas instead of flutes. They never waste good soil growing flowers, and Daryl sleeps in a platform tent – rough and simple – the way he likes it. He's _needed_ here at the Hilltop, the sole hunter in a land of farmers. The Kingdom has plenty of hunters of its own. And at least Maggie speaks like a completely normal person, unlike Ezekiel.

 _Fucking Ezekiel_ , Daryl thinks. _Fucking second-rate community theater wannabe actor._

 _Fucking..._

 _handsome..._

 _articulate..._

 _patient..._

 _...charming bastard._

Absolutely everything Daryl isn't.

He'll see her the next time she visits the Hilltop, but he he doesn't want to see her in the Kingdom, orbiting Ezekiel's sun. "Gonna have annoyin' music and dumbass games and tournaments and shit. Ain't my thing."

Maggie leans forward to peer at him. "Don't you think Carol will be disappointed if you don't come?"

"Why?"

"Because you're old friends. And she doesn't get to see you that often."

"You goin'?"

"No. Someone's got to be in charge here. So Enid's taking Glenn, and I'm staying behind. Besides, I know those knights will just spend all night trying to get in my pants anyway." She smirks. "You probably won't have that problem."

"Ain't gonna have that problem 'cause I ain't gonna go."

"You _are_ going to go," Maggie says in her formal leader voice. Daryl's gotten used to that voice. It comes with pursed lips and cool eyes, and she can shift in and out of it like she's flicking a light switch.

It doesn't annoy him when she's using it on other people, but no one orders _him_ around. He _follows_ her because he _respects_ her. His blade stills against the branch he's carving, and he turns to her with equally cool eyes. "Thatta _command,_ Madame President?"

"I need you to be my eyes and ears at the Kingdom. Gather intel."

"Ain't our enemies."

"No, but, they're our trading partner. And I'm not sure we're getting the best possible deals. Let me know what they've got, what they need, what you hear them _talking_ about wanting. Just…pay attention and give me what you can."

"Sounds like a job for Jesus."

"Jesus is still on that supply run," Maggie tells him. "I'm not sure he's going to be back in time. It's a job for _you_."

"Well I ain't applyin' for no job."

From behind them comes another voice – "Oh, just fucking go to the festival, Mr. Grinch."

Daryl cranes his neck back to see Rosita standing on the porch, one hip jutted out, her hand on the butt of her 9 mm. "I need you to play my boyfriend." She strides down the stairs, walks between them, and turns to face them. "If I don't have a boyfriend when I go, one of those men is going to be on me like white on rice."

"Thought ya said ya _wanted_ to go so's you _could_ get laid," Daryl replies. Rosita tells him whatever's on her mind when they're on watch together. The woman's got no filter, not with him anyway. She treats him like a girlfriend in the 8th grade bathroom. Maybe because he doesn't say much.

"Well I _do_ have an itch," Rosita says. "But I don't want whatever guy I pick to scratch it to think _anything_ is going to come of it. So if he thinks I've already got a boyfriend, he'll know it's a one-time thing."

"Ya want me to play yer _cuckold_?" Daryl half shouts. "Fuck no! I look like the kinda guy that would put up with another guy fuckin' my girl without kickin' his ass?"

The kids look over from their hopscotch game. Maggie pushes her hand down and whispers, "Innocent ears."

"Ain't no innocence in this world," Daryl mutters, but he _does_ lower his voice because he sees Judith looking his way. Little Ass Kicker isn't afraid of him like the other kids. She's everybody's child now that Rick and Michonne are gone, but Daryl thinks maybe he's first in her heart – the first one to have ever fed her, the first one to rock her to sleep after her daddy and stepmamma disappeared. Judith has him wrapped around her little finger, and she damn well knows it. "Ain't gonna do it," he tells Rosita in a lowered voice. He looks suspiciously at Maggie. "Ya already know what the Kingdom has, what it needs, and what it wants!" Then he looks at Rosita. "And yer damn well capable of puttin' off men without my help. Hell is this?"

"Daryl," Maggie says with exasperation, "We just want you to go to the festival. We think it'll be _good_ for you."

"Ain't goin'."

But then Judith breaks away from the hopscotch game, runs up to him, and wraps her arms around his leg, forcing him to pull his branch and knife back. She looks up and smiles. "My Daryl's gonna take me to the festival. Win me a prize!"

"Prize?" he asks.

"She's heard the games are going to have prizes," Maggie says. "You've got to take her."

He looks down at the little girl, who has rested her chin on his knee and is looking up at him with big blue eyes. "A'ight," he says at last.


	2. Chapter 2

The carriage rattles and bumps over the worn pavement as Rosita lashes the horses to drive them on. She learned to drive horses as quickly as she must have once learned to make bombs. Daryl, who's sitting next to her in the two-person driver's seat, holds his crossbow at the ready for any troublesome walkers.

"Festival! Festival! Festival!" With each shout Judith pumps a fist into the air.

Gracie, who is possibly three now (they assigned her a birthday, just to give her one) echoes Judith: "Feesteeval! Feesteeval! Feesteeval!"

Glenn, Jr. imitates them both, managing a "Fwesal! Fwesal! Fwesal!"

Daryl glances back at the three kids rattling around in the first bench seat, with only Enid to control them. On the second bench seat sits Bertie, a married couple, and their young daughter. Behind the carriage follows a rickshaw, with Aaron pedaling rigorously and looking very much like a model out of a bicycle catalog. Two passengers chatter in the seat he draws. And behind the rickshaw, several Hilltop families crowd shoulder to shoulder on the wooden bed of a horse-drawn cart, with only a low railing to keep them from toppling out.

Daryl looks forward again and thinks how much he misses his motorcycle. He's still got it, of course, and sometimes he even tinkers with it – but he hasn't ridden it in nine months. The gas – when they can even find it – is spoiled now. It's so low on octane it doesn't ignite, and vehicles don't start, or, if they do, they run so poorly it isn't worth trying to drive them.

The book that wandering woman gave Maggie has nothing in it about building refineries, and, even if it did, they're too busy feeding and clothing and housing themselves. Their greatest luxury at the Hilltop now is a large wooden windmill that lets them generate a little electricity – enough to fuel-up rechargeable batteries and power a pump to channel cold well water to three outdoor faucets. A refinery's not exactly in their immediate future.

And maybe it's for the best the gas is useless now. They haven't been attacked by some new enemy in eleven months. It's harder to war when you have to travel so far on horseback or bicycle to do it. This is the longest stretch of peace Daryl's known since the Outbreak started. The communities are smaller now, of course, after the War with the Whispers. The survivors from the destroyed Sanctuary and Alexandria have rolled into either the Hilltop, the Kingdom, or Oceanside. But it's easier to trade and make agreements with only three camps.

"Festival! Festival! Festival!"

"Feesteeval! Feesteeval! Feesteeval!"

"Fwesal! Fwesal! Fwesal!"

"Quiet down back there!" Daryl barks, but when Judith pouts, he feels guilty for nipping at their excitement.

He grunts an apology and looks forward again, which is when he sees the walker stumbling down the road, sniffing at the horses, and thrashing its decaying jaws. He takes his time to aim – because he has plenty of time - and the arrow thunks perfectly into the creature's forehead. "Slow down," he tells Rosita, and when the carriage has reached a snail's pace, he leaps off the high seat, strides over to recover his arrow with a jerk, and then jogs to catch up with his ride again.

[*]

A grinning Jerry greets them at the gates to the Kingdom. "Welcome to the fall harvest festival, dudes and dudettes!" he booms.

Daryl wants to be annoyed, but he can't be. The man's good nature is almost infectious. _Almost_. There's a nervous knot in Daryl's stomach. Facing down a small herd of walkers is one thing – that he can manage - but parties are another thing entirely.

As the Hilltop visitors spill out of the carriage, rickshaw, and wagon, Jerry closes the gate behind them. Daryl helps Judith down while Enid gets Glenn and Aaron gets Gracie. Judith slips her little hand into Daryl's and looks with awe at the scene before her. And well she might. She's never seen the Kingdom before.

Daryl has, of course, but not since the War with the Whisperers. It's been almost a year, and the place has grown. Gardens have been planted in places that held only parking lot before. There's a third greenhouse now, and crops grow in the distant, former baseball field. Two smokehouses stand at the corners of the school, and a newly built, stone-laced firepit glows in the courtyard. The scent of roasted pig wafts toward them, and live music drifts from beneath a gazebo – something ancient and folkish – and Daryl hates that it almost makes his foot want to tap.

Ezekiel, in a long, flowing black coat, strolls purposefully toward them. His hair is no longer in dreadlocks, but is cut high and tight, and Daryl wonders if he's done that for Carol. She once told Daryl she thought he looked better with shorter hair. That's _not_ why he chopped his own off, though - it just finally started to annoy him, and it's easier to keep it clean now. "Welcome, good neighbors," Ezekiel calls, "to the great celebration of the bounty nature has bestowed upon our peoples!"

Daryl swallows an annoyed grumble, while from beside him, Aaron, with Gracie sitting on his shoulders, says, "He's still at that?"

Some men from the Hilltop slide their offerings off the center of the cart – three bushels of corn - a crop the Kingdom lacks. It's their way of partially paying for the food and drink they know they'll be consuming in large quantity tonight. Ezekiel thanks them, and the pages of the Kingdom vanish with the gift.

"You shall be our guests until the morning," Ezekiel tells them.

"What?" Daryl asks. "Thought this festival was just gonna be a couple hours."

Ezekiel chuckles. "Hardly! The revelry shall last until nightfall, and it will be too dark for you to safely journey home. But we will ensure that every one of you has a roof of some form over your heads tonight."

"Yeah, I shouldn't have a problem finding a place to crash," Rosita says, eyeing one of the knights of the Kingdom who has just drawn up to inspect the arriving guests – a swarthy, dark-eyed man who can't be more than forty. Her eyes flit over his hands in search of a wedding ring. He notices, and he smiles.

"The harvest feast shall be served when the clock strikes seven," Ezekiel continues. "Until then, you are invited to roam the grounds freely, enjoy the entertainments, reacquaint yourselves with old friends, delight in the crafts, observe the tournaments, and sample the wares." With twinkling eyes, he sweeps his finger among the children. "But be wary lest you spoil your appetite before the great feast!"

"Tournaments?" Aaron asks.

"We've got fencing," Jerry says eagerly. "And form competitions, with staff. Javelin throw." He grins. "I'm probably going to win that one. Horse racing. Boxing. And archery. You're totally doing the archery, right?" He looks at Daryl.

"Uh…"

"It's at six," Jerry explains. "In the arena."

"The _arena_?" Rosita asks.

"The former football field," the knight Roista has been sizing-up answers. "I'm Khalid, by the way. I don't believe we've met."

"We have," Rosita tells him. "In the War with the Whisperers. I'm the one who handed you that extra magazine when you ran out."

"Ah. You were covered in walker guts at the time. I didn't recognize you." He smiles and half bows his head. "Can I show you around?" He gestures toward the courtyard.

Rosita shrugs and and follows him into the Kingdom.

"So you're competing, right?" Jerry asks Daryl again. "Just show up. First prize is a bushel of apples."

Daryl's mouth waters just thinking about it. They don't have apple trees at the Hilltop. They've planted some, but they aren't mature yet. He'd be a hero if he brought back an entire bushel of apples. "Can I use my crossbow?"

"We'll have longbow, crossbow, and compound bow rounds," Jerry says. "You have to shoot all three. And it's judged on accuracy, not speed."

Daryl's shot a compound bow – in fact, as a kid, he had a compound bow before he got his first crossbow, and he's been practicing with one at the Hilltop, because eventually he won't be able to find parts for his crossbow – but he's never shot a _longbow_. "Dunno."

"My Daryl hits the bullseye," Judith says. "And wins me apples."

"Then it is decided!" Ezekiel intones. "Daryl shall enter the archery competition."

A figure approaches from behind Ezekiel. Daryl looks over the king's shoulder, expecting to find Carol come out to greet them, but it's a stranger. At least, Daryl _thinks_ it's a stranger until he realizes the figure is Henry. The boy has shot up eight inches, easily, since Daryl last saw him, and put on at least fifty pounds – a lot of it muscle. All those forms with the staff must be paying off. Henry's hair is almost a golden brown now, and he now looks more like a young man than a little boy. Enid clearly notices. She's over eighteen now herself – too old for a young teenager like Henry – but that doesn't mean she isn't taken aback by the transformation. "Hey, Henry," she says. "You've…grown."

Henry nods and then says, "Liam's in the dunking booth. You've got to come see it."

Liam, a twenty-year-old trade representative of the Kingdom, spends a lot of time with Enid when he comes to the Hilltop. Maggie kept a suspicious eye on him at first, but she's since told Daryl she thinks the match is inevitable and that she's in favor of it – but only if Liam moves to the Hilltop. Enid's too productive a member of the colony to lose.

Enid picks up Glenn, Jr. and settles him on her hip. "You're in charge of Judith," she tells Daryl, and then she follows Henry.

"And now, my most welcomed guests," Ezekiel insists, sweeping his arm toward the courtyard, "Go forth and enjoy the festivities!"

The people of the Hilltop eagerly flood into the Kingdom. Daryl, feeling out-of-place, watches them swarm out with laughter and excitement among the booths and tables that line the courtyard and stretch past the school.

Judith tugs on his hand. "Time for games, my Daryl!"


	3. Chapter 3

As Judith drags him into the midst of the flurry of activity, Daryl scours the bustling Kingdom for Carol's face among the many booths, but it's hard to make out much. They pass a fencepost with cardboard sings pointing in various directions: Crafts & Games, Meade & Wine, Tournament Arena, Banquet Hall. He's just pointed in the direction of the Meade & Wine sign – maybe a buzz will make this festival bearable - when Judith tugs him down a dirt path through the gardens in the direction of the Crafts & Games instead. "Shame Enid's been teachin' ya to read," he mutters.

They pass a booth where Nabila has lain out some colorful hand sewn scarfs, and Judith stops abruptly to look at them. "Ooooh. Pretty!" The little girl slides one off the table and wraps it around her neck, thrusting her head back and flipping her long, blonde hair like a model.

"Would you like to purchase one for the little girl?" Nabila asks.

"Uh…how?" Daryl asks. "With what?"

"I'll accept chocolate in trade. Coffee grounds. Or tea bags."

"How about a kiss?" says Jerry, who has come to a stop beside them at the booth.

Nabila smiles. "I can get those for free from you anytime I like."

Jerry grins. "Javelin tournament in forty minutes. You're coming to watch me?"

"I'll be there," she replies.

Jerry nods, smiles down at Judith, and walks on.

"Pleassse, my Daryl?" Judith asks as Jerry leaves. She strokes the soft fabric against her neck. "It's so so very pretty!"

Daryl looks at Nabila. "All I got is hand-rolled cigarettes."

"Well, I don't smoke, but I'm sure I can trade those to someone else for chocolate and tea. Two cigarettes for the scarf."

"Only got one on me," Daryl lies. He has three, but he doesn't want to give them up, not for a piece of fabric, and not if he's going to have to stay here _all night_. He's going to _need_ a smoke. Besides, he can get Judith a scarf on the next supply run. Hell, he can get her a _hundred_.

"Well…." Nabila smiles at Judith. "It's hard to say no to that face. I'll take a single cigarette."

Daryl reluctantly fishes a cigarette out of the front pocket of his dark brown, button-down shirt – the clean shirt he put on because…well, _not_ because he's going to see Carol. That's _not_ why he cut his hair and that's _not_ why he picked out this shirt. This just happened to be the fourth shirt he pulled out of the chest at the foot of his cot.

Nabila takes the cigarette from his hands with a smile, and Judith skips on down the walkway. "Didn't know this festival was gonna cost nothin'," he mutters before following.

At the next booth, Judith is delighted by the handmade jewelry. Daryl grumbles, "Get ya some necklaces on my next run."

"But they won't look like this!" Judith protests. "These are so, so, SO pretty!"

"Lots of pretty necklaces at the Pawn Shop. Get ya twenty."

"But those are FAKE necklaces. These are REAL!"

"They ain't fake. Made from gold and silver and shit. Some even got diamonds."

"I want a REAL necklace. Please? Oh pretty please? Please, please, my Daryl?"

Why's she got to call him that? _My_ Daryl. It does weird things to his heart. It isn't _fair_. Reluctantly, he relinquishes a second cigarette, and Judith skips away happily with her new necklace swinging across her chest.

The next booth is hocking art – sculptures made from junk and metal. Daryl nods to the woman behind the table. "Hey, Anne." He still wants to say _Jadis_. He can't quite get used to the very normal name. Daryl holds no grudge against her for having once sided with the Saviors, but he's never quite learned to _trust_ her either. She immigrated to the Kingdom after the War with the Whisperers.

Judith looks at the sculptures with a crinkled nose, as if she finds them distasteful.

"Would you like a cat?" Anne asks her, indicating something that only vaguely resembles a cat to Daryl.

"Uh…no thank you," Judith says and skips on.

Daryl, glad not to have sacrificed another cigarette, catches up to her and takes her hand to keep her from running out of sight. But _he's_ the one who slows to a stop at the next booth. Judith, clearly uninterested in the wares, tugs on his hand, but Daryl doesn't budge. In fact, he lets go of her hand.

"'S cool," he mutters, looking at the intricate patterns carved onto the lower and upper limbs of a longbow. He picks it up and feels the grip. "Solid. Ain't likely to slip none."

"Thank you," Dianne replies from behind the booth. "I put a lot of effort into my craft."

He puts the longbow down and examines the arrows next, running a finger along their smooth, well-formed length, and thinks of his own rough, ugly, handmade attempts at arrows. " _Damn_. Ya ever make 'em for crossbows?"

Dianne shakes her head. "Crossbows are too hard to maintain in this world. You know you'll run out of parts, eventually, right?"

"Yeah, well…" He puts the arrow down. "Ain't run out yet." His eyes are drawn to a knife with a carving on the hilt. "Hell…that a Cherokee Rose?"

"It was _meant_ to be a daisy. I messed up on it."

He picks the knife up and feels its weight. He can't help but notice it's a little light for his comfort, but just right for Carol. He carefully touches the blade and turns it over in his hand. "What ya want for it? All I got is one more cigarette."

"I don't smoke."

"Could trade it," he suggests.

"I'll tell you what. You can have it if you set me up on a date with that good-looking friend of yours."

The only men Dianne's ever seen him hanging out with are Rick and Aaron, and everyone knows Rick is gone. So she must mean Aaron. "Ah…sorry…He don't swing that way."

She chuckles. "I meant Tara. Did she come to the festival?"

Daryl blinks. "Uh…yeah." Tara was crammed into the cart. "But I ain't….I ain't much of a _matchmaker_."

Dianne nods to the knife in his hand. "You can have it as long as you tell her you want her to come see the archery tournament. And when I kick your ass in it, she'll be impressed."

"When _you_ kick _my_ ass in it?" Daryl asks.

Dianne smiles – about as much as Daryl has ever seen her smile – and nods. "Let's face it. You're going to bomb in the longbow round."

Daryl puts the knife in its leather sheath and shoves it into the waistband of his pants. "Yeah, well, you ain't so great at the crossbow." When she was disarmed in a skirmish with the Whispers, and he was slammed from behind with a club and lost his bow, Dianne scooped it up and shot at his attacker – but she missed terribly. Thankfully, Carol was fast on the Whisperer's heels and finished him off.

"But I'm almost as good at the compound bow as I am at the longbow," she tells him.

"Yeah, well…" Daryl juts out his chin. "So 'm I. Almost as good at the compound as the crossbow."

"Bring it!" Judith shouts, which makes Daryl feel suddenly silly.

Dianne laughs. It transforms her features and makes her almost attractive. "Yeah, you bring _it_ , Daryl," Dianne tells him. "And bring Tara. And enjoy the knife."

"Yeah." Daryl rests a hand on the hilt poking out of his waistband. "Thanks."

Daryl takes Judith's hand again. They move on past two more booths, and when they near the fresh tobacco booth, the sweet, peppery scent just about drives him mad. He stops and points to an open jar full of shredded tobacco leaves. Rolling papers are stacked next to the jar. "How much for some of that? And a couple papers? All I got is a cigarette." He fishes it out of his pocket and shows the man behind the table. It's his last one.

"Why on earth would I trade good tobacco for mediocre tobacco?" the wrinkled, gray-haired man behind the table asks.

"Yeah…'Course," Daryl mutters and slides the cigarette back into his front pocket.

The man nods to the scarf on Judith's neck. "Is that one of Nabila's?"

Daryl nods.

"The purple one," the old man says. "That's the one my wife said she wanted. I was supposed to snag it up before someone else did, but I forgot. I could give you several ounces of tobacco in exchange for it."

Daryl glances at Judith, who has just protectively put her hand on her scarf. "Yeah…uh…nevermind." He starts to walk on, but Judith plants her feet and tugs him back.

"If my Daryl wants smokes," she says, "my Daryl gets smokes." She unravels the scarf from her neck.

"Nah," he tells Judith, "ya don't – "

She slaps the scarf on the table. "Smokes," she demands. "A _dozen_."

The old man smiles. "Your daughter's quite the little barterer, isn't she?"

"Oh, she's not my – " He stops. "Yeah. Yeah, she drives a hard bargain."

"How about six?"

"Ten!" Judith demands.

"Seven," the old man suggest.

Judith hrmphs. "Fine."

"Would you like me to roll them for you?" the man asks Daryl.

"Sure."

Daryl leaves the table with seven new cigarettes in his front pocket – far more than he started with. As they walk away, he holds his hand up. "That's my Little Ask Kicker!"

Judith high fives him with a smack and cries, "Hell yeah!"

They reach the end of the craft booths and find themselves at the games. Judith is eager to play the first one she can find – a shooting gallery using B.B. guns. Judith takes aim at a target set at close range for little kids, but the rifle is a little too big for her arms to be comfortable. She can just reach the trigger, and she's all over the white of the paper and off it onto the backboard.

"Pull it into yer shoulder." Daryl crouches down beside her to help her reposition her grip. "See that white dot? Ya want to see it through these…" He points to the two metal sights. "'N put it on yer target."

Judith closes one eye and squeezes again. This time she gets within the third ring from the bullseye. "I did it!" she shouts. "I won!"

"Well," the man running the game says. "You have to get a bullseye to – "

Daryl glares at him.

"You won!" the man says. "You won." He opens a cooler and says, "Pick your ice pop." Inside are green, yellow, blue, red, and orange ice pops in thin, clear plastic – the kind Daryl's mama used to buy down at the gas station in bundles of fifty and freeze for summer. There were days when he ate three for lunch, because there was nothing else to eat. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised they've lasted this long, since there's not one natural thing in them.

Judith picks up a yellow one but puts it back. Then she does the same with a red. Finally, she settles on the blue. Daryl uses his pocket knife to cut it open for her, and she pushes it up and sucks happily on the ice, but then asks, "What is it?"

"'S a popsicle. Like…frozen sugar 'n water. 'N food colorin'."

"But what _flavor_ is it?"

"Blue raspberry."

"There are BLUE razz-bear-ees?" Raspberries grow wild just outside the hilltop, so she's had plenty.

"Nah. No. Not 'n _nature_."

She looks suspiciously at the pop, shrugs, and then pushes it up some more and proceeds to devour it before tossing the wrapper in the trash can between two booths.

"Next game," she demands, and she promptly vanishes.

Daryl looks around frantically and finds her across the dirt walkway, staring down into a brown barrel full of cold, dirty water. Little rubber ducks float atop the surface.

"Pick one and turn it over," the woman behind the table says. "And if there's a red dot on the bottom, that's a winner."

"What do I win?" Judith asks.

The woman points to a nearby table and Judith gasps when she sees the small, caramel-coated apples on a platter – each with a stick in the center.

Immediately, Judith seizes a duck and turns it over. "I won! I won!"

"Um….that's a blue dot," the woman says. "It has to be a _red_ dot."

Judith throws the duck back into the barrel and turns over four more until she finds a red dot, and then she shoves it toward the woman's face. "See! I won."

"You can only pick _one_ , honey."

Judith frowns and sets the duck back down.

Daryl plucks it up and turns it over and shows it to the woman. "Look. I won."

"My Daryl won!"

The woman shakes her head but gives Daryl one of the apples, which Daryl hands to Judith, who gnaws on it with an "Mhm…mhmmm….mhmmm…." as they browse the other game booths. They pass the dunking booth just as Enid's ball smacks the center of the dunking lever and her Kingdom boyfriend Liam plunges into the water below, before rising and cursing and shaking his head. Glenn, Jr. who is sitting on the ground and watching, cackles.

Liam smooths back his dark brown hair and resets the dunking bar before climbing back onto it. "It's COLD," he says. "How many times are you going to keep dunking me?"

Judith looks at the bucket full of balls. "What do I win if I make him fall?" she asks Enid.

"Just the pleasure of watching him make a fool of himself," Enid tells her.

Judith scrunches up her face. "Dumb game." She takes Daryl's hand and tugs him on.

Daryl tries to win her another prize – homemade hard sugar candy - by tossing rings over the necks of glass bottles, but he fails with the first three rings, muttering, "This game's rigged."

"Three more chances," the man behind the booth says sympathetically, and he hands Daryl three more rings.

Daryl curses when the first two miss. He's ever so carefully aiming the third when Judith's shout makes him drop it short.

"Carol!" the little girl cries. "I see Carol!"


	4. Chapter 4

Daryl follows Judith's pointing finger to where Carol stands at a narrow booth talking to Ezekiel. She leans forward over the booth and kisses the king on the cheek, and Daryl feels as if an iron ball has dropped and settled somewhere in the center of his gut.

Judith, calling Carol's name, runs to the booth. Ezekiel smiles at the little girl, waves goodbye to Carol, and strolls on. With heavy steps, Daryl approaches.

He may have cut his hair short again, but Carol has grown hers out still more in the two months since she last visited the Hilltop. It stretches all the way down her neck now, and curls up delicately in silver tendrils. Her eyes look different – more blue somehow – but maybe it's just the contrast they make with the pink blouse she's wearing. Now Judith is in her arms, hugging her around her neck, and Carol is peppering her little face with kisses.

Daryl finally looks up at the sign above Carol's head. _Kissing Booth_ , it reads. _25 cents_.

"Hey," Carol says as she sets Judith back down on her feet. "I hoped you would come."

"Times hard? Sellin' yerself for just a quarter?" The words come out more bitterly than he means them to. He probably should have started with _Hello_. Or _Hey_. Or _Hi_. Or _Long time no see_. Or _You look good_.

Because she _does_.

She _does_ look good.

She's put on a couple pounds since he last saw her, but in all the right places.

"You don't even have to have a quarter," Carol replies. "It's meant to be funny. The kisses are free." A light – almost nervous – smile pulls up her lips.

That smile softens his tone. "So yer just givin' out kisses to everyone and anyone? Ain't ya afraid of diseases?"

Carol chuckles. "Well, I'm not kissing anyone who appears to be coughing up a lung. And I'm mostly just kissing people on the cheek."

"Oh."

"I like your hair cut," she says. "I bet it's easier to see now."

"Uh…" He scratches the scraggly line of hair that ends at his earlobes. "Yeah."

"It's a bit lighter now, too," she says. "More like the color it was when we first met."

He thinks what Carol's saying is that it's not as dirty now. And the shorter hair is easier to keep clean. There's also the fact that Judith likes to wash his hair, like he's her puppy dog, between dunks of his head in the cold water of the wooden bathing trough. He can't say no to that girl.

Thinking of Judith makes him realize, suddenly, that she is no longer on the ground beside Carol's booth. He looks frantically to the left and the right and then, palms flat down on the booth, leans over to looks over the edge.

"She's over there," Carol says.

He follows the direction of her nod, and finds the little girl perched on Tara's shoulders to get a better view of a puppet show.

"I've got her!" Tara calls to him. "Don't worry. We'll hang. I'll bring her back to your later."

Daryl seizes the unexpected opening. "At the archery tournament! Bring her there! Six o'clock!"

Tara gives him a thumbs up, and Judith waves, and then both return their attention to the puppet show.

"Hell…I did it," he mutters in disbelief.

"Did what?" Carol asks.

"Uh…Dianne wanted me to get Tara to go watch her at the archery tournament. In payment for this." He pulls the knife out of his waistband and lays it on the booth. "Thought…just thought ya might like it."

Carol pulls out the knife, feels its weight in her hand, caresses the blade, and then slides it back into the sheath before examining the handle. A light mist clouds her blue eyes. "Is that a Cherokee Rose?"

"Yeah," he says softly. He doesn't tell her it was supposed to have been a daisy.

"Thank you. I love it." She slips it into the waistband of her dark blue jeans. The soft leather sheath that once rested against his bare hip now rests against hers. He has no idea why that thought makes him shiver.

Carol purses her lips in that pouty way she does when she's teasing him. "So…do you want your kiss or not?"

The ball in the pit of his stomach expands. It's not as if she's never kissed him before. She's done it four times on his forehead, and three times on the top of his head. Not that's he's counted. But he never saw any of those kisses coming. He never had to _say_ he wanted them, and he never even knew he _did_ want them until her lips were gone. "Uh…A'ight. I guess."

He turns his cheek to her, but instead of kissing it, she puts a finger on his other cheek and turns his face back toward her. Then she leans over the booth and kisses his lips.

The kiss is different than those of the past, and not just because it's on the lips. It's not following a tragedy, a hard-won war, or some surprise reunion. There's no _reason_ for it. And this time he doesn't feel a slow, warm comfort flood through his body. Instead, he feels a jolt of _heat_ , and then every one of his muscles tenses. An unfamiliar tingling pricks his nerves.

He wants more, and he hates himself for wanting more. It makes him feel weak.

[*]

Carol's wanted to kiss Daryl ever since the prison, but she's never mustered up the courage to do it. He's too skittish. This booth, however, gives her an excuse, and he doesn't pull away. In fact, he stands like a stunned animal, except that his lips do part slightly for her, and a faint taste of tobacco breathes into her mouth. His lips are softer than she anticipated, less chapped, and she has the urge to nibble on the bottom one - an urge she suppresses. Her fingertips trail across his cheek as she pulls away.

Daryl swallows, shifts on one foot, and asks, "Ya workin' this booth all night?"

Feeling embarrassed about the kiss, she acts confident and flippant. "Why? Are you going to keep coming back for more if I am?"

"Nah. Just…Judith's run off with Tara," he finishes lamely.

She smiles. "And you need a new fair buddy?"

He ducks his head.

"Well, it looks like Cary Grant is here to relieve me, anyway." Carol nods behind Daryl at the tall, dark-haired man with a cleft chin who has been turning heads in the Kingdom since he and his son arrived two months before the War Against the Whispers.

"It's Roland, actually." Roland extends his hand to Daryl. "You're Daryl Dixon aren't you?"

"Uh…yeah." Daryl clearly has no idea his reputation proceeds him. But he shakes Roland's hand.

"I heard about your exploits in the War with the Whisperers." Roland drops Daryl's hand. "You and I fought on different fronts."

"Roland is Liam's father," Carol says. "The supply runners found them living in the Smithsonian Castle."

Roland glances in the direction of the dunking booth, which Liam has abandoned to talk with Enid. Water dripping from his thick, curly brown hair, the young man stands with a hand on Enid's shoulder as Glenn, Jr. toddles toward the lever of the empty dunking booth and tries to push it. "But I don't think my son is long for the Kingdom. I suspect he'll be moving to the Hilltop before long."

"Maybe Enid will move here," Carol says.

"I doubt that." Roland steps behind the booth, and Carol steps out.

"You're going to have much more business than I did," Carol tells him with a smile. "The women are going to be lining up halfway to the gates of the kingdom."

Roland chuckles. "I'm sure you had your share of visitors."

"Kids, mostly," Carol says. Gracie gave her a big wet kiss a few minutes ago as she leaned out of Aaron's arms, and Enid brought little Glenn over before returning to the dunking booth. But there was also Eugene, who declared her kiss on his cheek instead of his lips to be an unethical demonstration of false advertising. And there was Ezekiel, who wanted to know if she would be competing in the knife throwing portion of the tournaments.

Daryl is now eyeing Roland through narrowed eyes. Carol hooks a finger through his belt loop to pull him away and in the direction she wants to walk. Obediently, the archer falls in step beside her, and she releases his belt loop.

"How's 'Zekial gonna like ya flirtin' with Roland?" Daryl grumbles. "'N him flirtin' with you?"

"What business would it be of Ezekiel's?"

"Well…ain't ya…you two? Ya _know_."

Carol peers at him. "Aren't we two… _what_?"

" _Together_."

"What on earth gave you _that_ idea?"

"'Cause ya came here," he says in a tone that implies she's being an idiot. "'N I seen ya together."

The most he could have seen was her sitting shoulder to shoulder with Ezekiel, huddling for warmth beneath a blanket. Or maybe Carol hugging the king after they both survived a battle. Daryl's probably seen her flirting with the man...but she flirts with _lots_ of men. The freedom to do so, after escaping the heavy shadow of Ed, still thrills her, even if perhaps it shouldn't. Daryl was her first test case, the first target of her feminine practice, but he's never responded the way other men do.

She thinks maybe Daryl's not interested in women. It's not that she thinks he's gay – she's never gotten that sense - but she thinks maybe he just doesn't think in sexual terms at all. If he did, surely he would have been to bed with _someone_ by now. But he doesn't even seem to _notice_ when women are attracted to him, and in her visits to the Hilltop, she's noticed at least two women who seem to be.

Carol doesn't doubt that Daryl _loves_ her, in a very deep and very real sense of the word, but she long ago gave up the hope that he would ever be able to love her romantically or sexually.

"Ezekiel and I are good friends," Carol tells him as they pass a booth displaying goods from the blacksmith. "And maybe there was a time when he was courting me." Ezekiel is handsome and charming and kind, but she didn't come to the Kingdom looking for the ideal husband, because she doesn't want to play the ideal wife. "But then we began trading with Oceanside, and he got to meet the trading team. You know the team?"

Two children run by them, laughing and pulling the stringers of a couple of poppers they just won, which sends confetti flying across the ground.

"Yeah," Daryl answers. "Kathy, Tyra, and that whiny teenager."

"Rachel." Kathy brings Rachel on the trade trips to train her, but the girl – who has to be fourteen by now and should be more mature - annoys Carol. Rachel never seems satisfied with the trades the Kingdom offers, and there was that time Henry asked her – very politely – if she wanted him to show her the Kingdom's new fish pond – and she blew him off snottily instead of putting him down gently. Not that Carol really wishes Rachel had taken Henry up on the offer. Henry can do much better. He's too young now, but when he's seventeen, there are some older girls Carol's pretty sure will be fast on his heels.

"Yeah. What 'bout 'em?"

"Well, let's just say that trading team's going to be a two-person team pretty soon," Carol tells him.

"Hell's that mean?"

"Tyra's moving to the Kingdom. We're about to have ourselves a queen. And that will knit our two communities closer together."

"King's getting' _hitched_ , ya mean?" Daryl asks.

"The King's getting hitched," Carol confirms as she makes a turn in the direction of the sign labeled _Tournament Arena_. "Next month. He's going to ask Father Gabriel to come and perform the ceremony."

She wonders if Father Gabriel is here today. She's about to ask when Daryl mutters, "Damn. Ya a'ight?"

"What do you mean?" There's a strange tone in his voice – almost as if he's concerned for her.

"Mean with the king gettin' hitched? 'S why ya moved here, right?" he asks. "'Cause Zeke was… _Courtin'_ ya."

"Daryl, I always kept Ezekiel at arm's length."

His tone grows suddenly irritated. "Like hell ya have. _Seen_ ya _on_ his damn arm."

Carol's not sure what that's supposed to mean, unless he's talking about the time Ezekiel once offered his arm to Carol, and she laced hers through his, and he walked her back to the covered wagon. "I don't mean I've _literally_ kept him at arm's length. It's a metaphor. I mean that, as flattered as I was by his attentions, I only responded to them up to a point. We both knew that wasn't heading anywhere."

"Hell you move _here_ for then?" Daryl snaps. "Why didn't ya stay with us?"

" _Us_?" Does she mean _him_? It annoys her that he won't say so if he does.

" _Us_. Yer _people_."

"Rick and Michonne went back to rebuild Alexandria after the War with the Saviors." They took Judith with them, of course. "So did Father Gabriel. You and Enid and Maggie stayed at the Hilltop. Tara went to Oceanside. Rosita and Eugene went to the Sanctuary. Morgan just _left_. We _all_ scattered."

After the War with the Whisperers – after the destruction and the loss of Rick and Michonne - Judith was taken into the Hilltop, and Rosita also immigrated there, along with Eugene, Laura, and a few other survivors from the Sanctuary. Tara returned to the Hilltop six months ago, after a bad break-up with her girlfriend at Oceanside. They're all there _now_ , but they weren't always.

"But _yer_ the only one went to the Kingdom," Daryl insists.

"I _asked_ you to come, Daryl, but you didn't _want_ to!" Carol doesn't understand why he preferred the Hilltop. If Judith had been there from the start, Carol might have understood his choice, but Judith wasn't there until Rick and Michonne were gone. Yet Daryl not only chose the Hilltop – he became Maggie's right-hand man. Maybe Carol has served her purpose in helping him to spread his wings, and he doesn't really need her any more. She doesn't begrudge him his place of respect at the Hilltop. But she's _missed_ him.

He sounds defensive and angry when he replies. "Kingdom ain't _our people_!"

"Neither was the Hilltop!" she shoots back. "And besides, Henry…Henry _is_ my people."

"Henry?" Daryl stops walking, and she does, too. "Ya moved here for Henry? Not for - "

There's a loud pop, and Daryl ducks and reaches for the crossbow on his back.

Carol puts a staying hand on his wrist. "It's just the balloon game." She nods over his head and he turns to see the kids throwing darts at balloons on a cork board.

He sighs and they walk on.

"Did you think I wanted to stay in the Kingdom for Ezekiel?" she asks.

"Well...yeah."

"Henry's has no mother or father," she says. "His older brother was killed by the Saviors. Morgan was training him for a while, but then Morgan took off to God knows where. Henry had no one left but me. You know, he reminds me of Sophia. He could have been her younger brother, he looks so much like her."

At least, Henry _did_ look like Sophia, when Carol first met him. Same color hair. Same color eyes. Same sort of freckles. Now he doesn't so much…but maybe he _does_. Maybe Sophia's hair also would have darkened by now. Maybe she'd be a foot taller, too. Carol swallows hard at the thought of her lost daughter. She looks at the ground, traces the Cherokee Rose on the hilt of her new knife with a fingertip, and blinks back the rising tears.

"Ya a'ight?" Daryl asks, and the gentleness in his voice makes her want to cry even more.

"Gotta be." She walks a little faster, though, and a little heavier before turning down a path that loops back in the direction of the mead and wine.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** If you are interested in reading one of my novels, the Kindle version of _The Caterer's Husband_ is 67% off at Amazon 7/27 and 7/28. Just search for "Molly Taggart."

[*]

The man filling pewter tankards from the keg looks like Friar Tuck from the old _Robin Hood_ stories Daryl's mamma used to read him, back before she slipped away into her own mind. "Ain't no one else got costumes," he whispers to Carol as they wait in line. "Why does he?"

"Brother Ignatius really was a monk," Carol whispers back. "The supply runners found him in a monastery in Maryland."

"And he still wears that damn thing?"

"He thinks it's magical, that it saved him from dying. All the other monks died. He was alone for over a year. He's a little touched in the head. But he's a good gardener and brewer. Do you have your tickets?"

"What?"

"Didn't Jerry give you each two tickets when you came in?"

"Oh… _that_ what these are for?" He fishes the blue _Admit One_ tickets out of his pants pocket. He thought Jerry was being goofy, and he almost threw them in the trash.

"Just _use_ one for now, Pookie," she teases. "You want to be clear-headed for the tournament. You _are_ competing in archery, aren't you?"

"Uh…yeah." Does that mean she's going to be _watching_ him? The thought makes him unexpectedly nervous.

Henry walks past them, pauses when he sees Carol, and backs up. He's as tall as Carol now, but he probably has more room to grow. The young teenager rest his staff against the ground and smiles. "Think I could have one of those tickets?"

"Maybe in two years," Carol tells him with a warning look.

"But they'll give me my _own_ in two years."

"I know. Because the drinking age is sixteen. Not _fourteen_."

Henry sighs. "Can't say I didn't try. Are you coming to watch me compete later?"

"Of course I am," Carol says. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Henry fishes out a red ticket from his pocket. "Guess I'll have to settle for the apple cider." He nods to Daryl and then makes his way over to another line, which is full of kids and teenagers. He starts talking to an older teenage girl.

Daryl used to think Henry was a hotheaded little dumbass, but it seems that, with Carol's guidance, the kid has matured. Of course, Daryl used to be a hotheaded dumbass. He probably _still_ is sometimes.

Soon enough, he and Carol step up to the keg, and the monk fills them each a tankard. As Daryl takes his by the handle, Brother Ignatius makes the sign of the cross over him and says, "Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable, and look through the lens of liquor with the eyes of love, praising God for the mead, for hell is empty and all the devils are here."

As they walk away sipping, Daryl asks Carol, "That shit in the Bible?"

She laughs. "No. His quotes are always jumbled up from different sources and never make much sense."

Daryl looks around as they walk. "This place has really grown up."

"Well, we keep taking in talented people. But we still have room to grow." She glances at him. "If anyone else ever decides to move here."

He looks into his beer. Is that a hint? Back when Carol returned to the Kingdom, after the War with the Saviors, he thought she was just saying it to say it… _you can come to the Kingdom, too_. He knows the door is open – that Ezekiel would allow him to immigrate - but he's not sure what use he would be here.

He could never be needed as badly as he is at the Hilltop. He's the best hunter there by far, though he's training a young married couple – who can't be more than twenty-six - to replace him one day. He's also Maggie's brawn when he has to be – he bumps chests with men who try to get away with not pulling their own weight, and he "checks" those who cross the line with women, which is to say that he's occasionally administered a guiltily satisfying beat down.

But the Kingdom doesn't need an enforcer, either. That's not how they seem to handle things here. There's a constable and a complaint process, courts and trials, fines and penalties. The worst punishment is banishment, and the distant threat of banishment alone seems to keep people in line. And why wouldn't it? Ezekiel has built something amazing here.

No, Daryl's not needed in the Kingdom. Not even Carol needs him anymore. There was a time when she did – on the farm and in the prison - but that time is long gone. She might _want_ him here, but she wouldn't _need_ him here. "Hilltop's got room, too," he says. "If'n anyone ever wants to move there."

"Not as much room."

She's right. The mansion has been full for two years, and over the past year, Daryl and a few others have given up their trailers to refugees and built platform tents to live in instead. The Kingdom, on the other hand, has an immense school building, outbuildings, and two dozen classroom trailers.

When Daryl doesn't reply, Carol changes the subject. "I take it Maggie didn't come?"

"She thought someone should stay 'n be in charge. Siddiq stayed back with some sick kids n' their families. Father Gabriel, too. 'N Jesus is on a run."

"I think Maggie just doesn't want to get hit on," Carol speculates. "But it's been almost three years since Glenn died. Maybe she could use a romantic distraction."

Daryl grunts and sips his beer.

"You don't think so?"

"Ain't sure a new man'd make 'er happy."

"You're not ever lonely?" Carol asks.

How did they go from talking about Maggie to talking about him? "Hell, I can't get away from people often enough."

"You don't _have_ to be my fair buddy, you know."

"Don't mean _you_. You ain't _people_."

She chuckles and bumps his shoulder, which makes his beer slosh up the sides of his now quarter-empty tankard. "I'll take that as a compliment." Carol slows to a stop before a man juggling sticks that have been set on fire at the tips. A small crowd has gathered around him.

It's an impressive trick, Daryl has to admit, but he's not sure how it would come in handy in a war. He thinks about war a lot now, too much, given the fact that they haven't had one in eleven months. He's not used to the peace. The Governor…Terminus…the Wolves…the Saviors…the Whisperers…all are gone now. He still feels like an attack is right around the corner. Maybe he'll _always_ feel like that. And maybe he _should_ ….but maybe the next generation shouldn't have to.

When the juggler extinguishes his sticks in a barrel of water after the grand finale, there's clapping and cheering, and Carol raises her tankard with a "Huzzah!" She looks _happy_. Not the pretend happy from their first days in Alexandria, but _real_ happy. It makes him smile.

He follows her as she wanders on, and they've soon drained their cups. They set them on a stand by one of the trash cans, from which Carol tells him they'll later be bussed and cleaned.

"To think we just had homemade beer form $130 pewter tankards," Carol says. "It's strange to think what things were once worth."

"What people _thought_ they was worth," Daryl clarifies.

Rosita crosses the path in front of them, with Kahlid by her side, his rapier swinging slightly from a red sash. She stops to greet Carol, and when they're done exchanging their hellos, Kahlid puts a hand on Rosita's ass to guide her on. Daryl supposes Rosita must like it, because if she didn't, she'd turn around and slam Kahlid right in the crotch with her knee and then drop him to the ground. Daryl's saw her do it to a man at the Hilltop once.

"He a'ight?" Daryl asks Carol.

"If you mean is Rosita safe with him, then I think the better question is if _he's_ safe with _Rosita_."

Daryl laughs behind closed lips. Carol's always doing that to him – making him laugh. He's not sure how she does it, because God knows he's never been much of a laugher. He's probably huffed and chuffed and snorted more in the past five years with her than he did in the first forty years of his life.

"What happened with Rosita and that other man?" Carol asks. "Eduardo?"

"He took up with some chick from Oceanside."

"Poor Rosita."

Daryl shrugs. "Ain't like she loved him. And he weren't that great in bed."

Carol stops still, looks at him, and blinks.

"She tells me shit on watch. Won't shut up."

Carol laughs and starts walking again. "Well, there's always Eugene, if she runs through every other single man."

"Speak of the devil," Daryl mutters.

Around a bend in the path, they come across Eugene explaining to a small crowd how the trick a magician has just shown them works. One mother puts her hands over her young son's ears and begins to steer him away. " _Must_ you spoil his fun?" she asks as she leaves.

The magician shakes his head and wanders off, too, while the crowd disperses. "Have you summarily abandoned your post at the deceptively labeled kissing booth?" Eugene asks Carol.

"I'm afraid so."

"I suppose you were motivated by a desire to avoid additional unsavory interactions after the application of your lips to the epidermis of my buccal mass."

"I just wanted to enjoy the fair, Eugene," she says. "You'll enjoy it more, too, I bet, if you just suspend your disbelief."

She startles Daryl by wrapping her arm around his. As Daryl walks on with her, he tries bending his arm a little the way he sees other men do when women walk arm on arm with them, but it just makes Carol's grip more awkward. She pulls loose, as if maybe she thinks he was shaking her off. His brain says, _Come back here_ , but the words don't make it out of his mouth.

They pass Aaron pushing Gracie on a tire swing hung from the limb of an apple tree. Carol waves to them and they wave back.

"Are he and Jesus together yet?" she asks when the swing is behind them.

"Just 'cause they's the only ones… don't mean they _have_ to get together," Daryl tells her.

Carol chuckles. "Oh, I doubt they're the only ones. Some people are more malleable than you'd guess, when resources are scarce."

"Hell ya mean malleable?"

"Take Dianne. She'll go either way. And she's not the only one."

Something Daryl never, ever considered begins to surface to his mind. " _You_?"

Carol covers her nose to hide the snort, and then drops her hand. "No, not _me_ , silly. I like…masculine men."

Daryl's trying to think how to respond to that when he hears a shriek – _Judith's_ shriek. He runs toward the sound, his boots pounding on the dirt path, but comes to an abrupt stop when he finds her – and three other kids aged four to nine – spinning about in a large ship-like barrel that dangles from a wooden frame. The barrel has been wound up on ropes and released. Now Judith is no longer shrieking but laughing hysterically as the barrel unwinds and spins.

"The barrel of bedlam," Carol says when she catches up. "It was Jerry's idea. Too bad he's too big to ride it." She pouts. "Too bad I am too."

Daryl looks her up and down. "Ya ain't _big_."

"It's for _kids_. That poor guy has to push and wind it." She nods to a man who is standing off to the side as the ride slows.

Eventually, the man halts the barrel completely and helps the kids out one by one. Judith runs to Daryl. "Can I have a sleepover with Olivia? Can I? Can I? Can I?"

"Uh…"

A woman approaches him. "Hi," she says. "I'm Stephanie. You must be Judith's father?"

"Uhm…I'm 'er…"

"Daryl's her godfather," Carol answers for him.

"Can I? Please?" Judith asks. "Pleeeease, my Daryl?"

"We know you're all staying for the night," Stephanie tells him. "And you need rooms. We can take Judith. Olivia has a trundle bed. Judith can sleep on the pull-out."

Daryl doesn't know this woman, so he glances at Carol, who nods her approval.

"Yeah…sure…I guess," he says. He looks at Judith. "Did Tara just _leave_ you with 'em?"

"She's with the bow woman," Judith says, and runs over to her new friend Olivia, takes the girl's hand, and says, "Let's ride again!"

"She'll be fine with Stephanie and Olivia," Carol assures him and takes him by the belt loop to tug him away again. "Let's get fried potatoes before the tournament."

Daryl forgets his concern over Judith, and his eyes light up. "Y'all got _fries_?"


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** If you are interested in reading one of my novels, the Kindle version of _Off Target_ is 67% off for a few days. Just search for "Molly Taggart."

[*]

No matter how often she witnesses it, Carol is always surprised at what a brutal and messy eater Daryl is. He's never tamed that aspect of his being. He devours the chunks of salted and lightly fried potatoes and then sucks his fingers clean one by one.

"Taste good?" Carol asks before nibbling on her second to last piece.

"Mhmhmhm…." He hums.

"We had a good potato harvest. Maybe the Hilltop will trade us some more corn for potatoes?"

"Ya gotta talk to the traders. Ain't my job. But…yeah. Probably." He looks longingly at the final chunk of fried potato she's just lifted out of her napkin.

Now that she clearly has his attention, she takes one slow, sensual bite and chews it with a sexual moan.

" _Stahp_."

She laughs, holds out the last of the piece toward him, and says, "Open up."

He closes his lips into a firm scowl.

"Your loss." She pops the last of the potato into her mouth, closes her eyes, and chews, but they fly open when a trumpet sounds from within the football stadium to announce the opening of the tournament games.

The sound must draw walkers, because it's followed by a pop-pop-pop of gunfire from the Kingdom's four watch stands at the corners of the border fence, and then silence.

Walkers are fewer and farther between now, so sound is less of a concern than it once was, and it gives the watch necessary practice when the creatures are drawn. The communities are sparing with their ammunition, despite the fact they still have quite a bit. After the War with the Whispers, which exhausted their stock, and shortly before the last of the gas spoiled, the communities joined together to locate and loot every firing range and gun club in Virginia.

Unlike the firearms shops, armories, and sporting goods stores, the ranges hadn't been ravished. The offices in each one had ammunition, gun oil, and other firearms-related odds and ends for sale to range visitors, as well as guns for rent for range use. Maggie thought of the idea, and Carol couldn't help but wondered why Rick never had.

"Come on," she tells Daryl. "It's starting." She walks quickly in the direction of the sign labeled _Arena_ and glances back to make sure Daryl is following. He is, still licking his fingers.

Daryl follows her dutifully to the faded, aluminum-colored bleachers and up three stairs to the third row, but when she starts to walk in to sit down, he pauses in the aisle.

"You're more of a back-row sitter, aren't you?" she asks.

He nods.

"Well, I want to be close to see Henry. But we'll got up _one_ more." That puts a row of space between them and the people who are already seated in the second row, but not for long – as more people begin to abandon their booths and fill the stadium.

"Ain't been in a football stadium since fifth grade," Daryl says as lays his crossbow on the bleachers to his left to protect his space.

"Really? You didn't go to any high school games?"

"Used to go when Merle was in high school, but I's in fifth grade then."

"Did Merle play?" she asks.

"For 'bout two weeks, 'fore he got kicked off the team."

"Dare I ask for what?"

"Showin' up to practice drunk. But he still took me to the games. He'd sneak a bottle of booze up the bleachers, to the top row, throw it back while we watched. No one'd bother us 'til Merle got rowdy and started yelling crude shit at the cheerleaders. Couple of boyfriends didn't take kindly to that."

"I imagine not."

"Merle always won those fights, but once a girl's daddy decked him. Got ugly. Police got called. Merle ended up in juvie for assault and battery, public intoxication, and possession for the meth in his pocket. His bike got seized, too, 'n I had to walk home six miles."

"The police didn't take you home?"

"Well, I ran when they showed up. Didn't know if I'd be in trouble. Since I might of had a swig or two."

Carol shakes her head. "I didn't drink until I was twenty-one. You make me feel so innocent." It's a light joke, but it grows heavy in her heart, because she's _not_ innocent. Not anymore. She may not have had much booze on her breath these past few years, but she's had plenty of blood on her hands.

Daryl must read the guilt in her face, because he keeps talking to distract her from it. "Never really wanted to go to a game after that. 'Sides, didn't have time. Always workin' in high school. Forty hours a week."

"During the school year? Wasn't that illegal because of child labor laws?"

"Under the table shit," Daryl says. "Used to fall asleep 'n class. Finally dropped out my junior year."

Five horses are being led onto the field by men and women with lances in their hands – one of them Ezekiel.

"They ain't gonna _joust_ are they?" Daryl asks.

"No. It takes too long to make those lances. They're great for walkers, and no one is going to break them for sport. It's a rings competition." She nods to the rings dangling from a horizontal post at the end of the field. "They get four passes each, and whoever takes down the most wins."

"Hell's that guy doin'?" Daryl watches as man rolls a cart full of medals out to a table at the sidelines and begins to lay them out.

"He's the games master. He'll give out the medals. Gold, silver, and bronze for each event. He took them from the school trophy cases."

"Thought we's gettin' apples if we won."

"The first-place winner in every event will get a small bushel. We had a _huge_ crop."

"But Kingdom's just gonna win 'em all," Daryl mutters.

"Maybe not. You might win the archery. A dozen people from Oceanside are here. They might win something. Rosita might win the rifle competition. She said she was competing."

"Ain't you doin' rifle?"

"Yes."

"Then Rosita ain't winnin'."

The compliment – delivered in true Daryl fashion – warms her. "I don't know about that. But I'll probably win the knife throwing. And then I'll make apple butter from my bushel and store it in mason jars. I'll give you one the next time you come to visit me." She looks at him, to see if he'll take the hint. She's always the one to visit the Hilltop, not the other way around. Of course, she's a trader for the Kingdom, and he's _not_ a trader for the Hilltop, but every now and then, she'd like him to visit just to…visit.

He's studying her face, like he's trying to interpret her words. "A'ight," he says finally. "Love me some apple butter. Get it next time I visit."

She smiles and turns her attention to the games just as Ezekiel thunders across the football field on his brown mare Shakespeare and captures a ring with his lance.

The crowd cheers.

Rosita takes a few steps into the fourth row and looks down at Daryl's crossbow. "Move it, seat hog," she says.

He grunts, but he does remove the crossbow, swinging it onto his back. Rosita sits down next to him and then Khalid, adjusting the rapier in his sash, sits next to her.

Roland, on his stallion Black Magic, is the next to make a pass at the rings, and he loops one onto his lance.

"Is that the kissing booth man?" Rosita asks. "He looks like Cary Grant." She leans over Daryl to talk to Carol. "Who _is_ he exactly?"

Khalid frowns. "He's a feckless playboy. You wouldn't be interested."

Rosita turns back. "I thought _you_ were a feckless playboy. That's _why_ I was interested."

Khalid raises an eyebrow and his dark eyes twinkle. "I assure you I can be anything you would like me to be."

"Roland is _not_ a playboy," Carol insists.

"Where'd you find him?" Rosita asks.

"We found him and Liam living in the Smithsonian Castle, but they're from Maryland originally. Roland owned a horse farm there, but it got overrun by walkers from a hospital five miles away. Roland's wife and three other children made it out, but he'd lost all but Liam by the time we found them."

Roland's son Liam makes the next pass as Enid, who is sitting in the first row, cheers, but her cheer is swallowed as the young man misses and nearly falls from his horse.

The next knight captures her ring, but the fifth one does not.

Liam reclaims his dignity in the next round, while his father misses, and Ezekiel takes the lead by being the only rider to score two rings in a row. When Roland and Ezekiel are both three in four after the final ring, however, the rings are reset for a playoff round.

Roland takes the prize to the cheers of the crowd, and the field is reset for the quarterstaff competition. Carol leans forward anxiously in her seat as Henry, nervously gripping his staff, but his head held high in mock confidence, walks out onto the field with his formidable competitors.


	7. Chapter 7

"Henry! Henry! Henry!" Carol chants form a standing position while the competitors line up before the game master. The young teenager glances in her direction but doesn't acknowledge her.

Daryl reaches up, takes her hand, and tugs her back down to sit on the bleachers. "Yer embarassin' 'em," he says.

"That's my _job_ ," she tells him.

Henry scores well in the individual forms portion of the quarterstaff competition – better than any of the grown men, in fact - surpassing Ezekiel by a single point when the judges raise their placards. Carol rises to her feet again, cups her hands over her mouth, and hollers.

She's beaming when she sits back down next to Daryl, but when it comes to the fighting portion of the competition, Ezekiel bests Henry. Jerry doesn't, but only because he pretends to lose his grip for a second and allows Henry to win by a single point. In the end, Henry takes second place out of seven competitors. Carol rises to cheer him on when he gets his silver medal draped around his neck.

When she sits down, she mutters, "Ezekiel shouldn't have tried so hard."

"Hell he shouldn't of!" Daryl tells her. "Ain't no teenage boy wants a victory _thrown_ to 'em. Trust me. 'Zeke did the right thing. Showed Henry he's got room to grow. 'S a good leader."

"I always thought you disliked Ezekiel."

"Nah," Daryl says. He just disliked the man's attention to Carol. "He's a'ight."

Javelin throw follows, with Jerry taking the gold, a woman from Oceanside claiming the silver, and Roland taking the bronze.

Rosita watches Roland duck his head to receive the medal. "He can throw _and_ ride?"

"But he can't fight with a _sword_ ," Khalid tells her. He stands and grasps the hilt of his rapier. "It's my time to shine." He unties the red sash that holds his weapon to his side and hands the silky material to Rosita. "A favor, for the lady for whom I compete."

Rosita smirks as the sash dangles from her hand. "Yeah? What am I supposed to do with _this_?"

"Oh, I think we can find a use for it later tonight," Khalid tells her with a wink before strolling toward the aisle.

Carol catches Daryl's eye and the two share a secret, silent laugh.

Khalid loses the fencing competition, however, to Tyra, the king's bride-to-be from Oceanside. He returns to the stands with a darkened face and only a silver medal dangling from his neck.

"I can see why Ezekiel likes her," says Dianne to Tara. The women sit in the third row directly in front of Daryl, a spot they took up during the javelin throw.

"Because she's gorgeous?" Tara asks.

"No," Dianne says with a faint hint of annoyance. "Because she's _skilled_."

[*]

When the seven-and-under, three-legged sack races start, Carol spies Olivia and Judith being walked out to the field by Olivia's mother to join the competition. Enid is leading out a toddling Glenn, Jr., and Aaron is walking out Gracie by the hand.

Carol bumps Daryl's shoulder. "Look."

"Aw yeah."

The master of the games announces that the first prize for this kids' event will not be a bushel of apples, but a bag of homemade hard rock candy. Olivia and Judith grab each other by the shoulders and jump up and down in place in excitement.

The racers ready themselves, each putting one leg in their shared sacks. Enid and Aaron have to help Glenn, Jr. and Gracie get arranged in theirs.

"Odds those two will end up married one day?" Carol asks Daryl.

"Mini-Glenn 'n Gracie?" he asks. "Nah. She's too old for 'em."

"By less than a _year_!" His response irritates her more than she'd like to admit to herself. "What, do you think men never like older women?"

"Just…thought most girls like older guys, 's all. Girls my age always wanted _Merle_ , not _me_."

Carol's irritation subsides. "Well those girls were idiots."

"'N ya like 'em older, too."

"What?"

"Ya got with Tobin." It's the first time Daryl's explicitly mentioned that short-lived relationship, and he says it with a rumble in his throat that makes Carol feel guilty.

"Tobin was younger than me," she says quietly. "By five months."

"Really?" Daryl asks doubtfully. "Thought he was ten years older."

"How old do you think I am?"

"Dunno. Forty-six?"

She laughs. "I'm fifty-one now."

"Nah!"

On the field, Judith grips the burlap sack tightly with her little hands and waits anxiously for the starting whistle. Aaron is holding Glenn, Jr. and Gracie back so they don't start to soon.

"Why?" Carol asks. "How old are _you_?" They've never actually discussed age, but if she had to guess, she would say he was forty-two.

He clearly has to think about it for a moment, but he settles on "Forty-five."

"Well my guess was closer than yours." She returns her attention to the field because the game master has just blown his whistle.

Glenn, Jr. makes it maybe five feet before the little boy trips, falls, and crawls out of the bag. He pulls himself up into a standing position and begins toddling down the field. Gracie, with the bag still wrapped around her left foot, toddles off after him, dragging it along the worn AstroTurf, to the roaring laughter of the crowd.

When Olivia and Judith overtake the two little boys who are in second place, Daryl stands and yells, "Go, Little Ass Kicker! Go! Kick some ass!"

Three women in the first and second row look back at him with accusatory eyes, but he just keeps whooping.

There's a pair of seven and eight-year-old siblings that Carol doesn't think the girls will be able to beat. But then the lead duo face plants on the field, while Olivia and Judith plow on.

The two girls win the prize, to much hooting by Daryl. Judith waves to him from the field and holds up the bag of candy.

When Daryl sits down again, Carol says, "What's this you said about not embarrassing the kids?"

"'S different! Henry ain't a little girl."

Next the eight- to twelve-year-olds race, and then the competition is opened up to youth and adults, age thirteen and up.

"Are you going to race with me, Pookie?" Carol teases.

"Hell no!"

She fake pouts. "Why not?"

"'S undignified."

 _"You're_ worried about your _dignity_?" Rosita asks him.

"I don't blame him in the least," Khalid says. "There won't be a real man in that competition."

"I don't know," Rosita replies. "It looks like Roland's taking the field. He seems to be looking for a partner."

Carol stands. "I suppose I'll have to race with Roland then."

The bleachers clang as Daryl scrambles to his feet. "Nah. No."

"So you're competing with me?"

Daryl's thumbnail goes straight between his teeth. "Should race with Henry," he mutters. "'S thirteen 'n up."

"You know, I think I just might do that," Carol concedes, and Daryl looks relieved.

"I guess I'll have to help out Roland then," Rosita says, standing and leaving Khalid's sash draped over the bleacher seat.

[*]

Henry hesitates to join Carol for the race. "It's uncool," he says.

Rachel from Oceanside walks past him, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "I think it's pretty cool. I'm racing with Beatrice."

Suddenly, Henry is a lot more interested in joining the competition. Carol, however, is perturbed, because that brat of a girl plays Henry like a violin.

Meanwhile, Rosita approaches Roland, adjusts her posture to show her chest to best advantage, and gives him a once-over. "Want to jump in the sack with me?"

Carol tries not to laugh at the slightly startled reaction on Roland's face. "Um…"

"Well, you're standing there with you sack in your hands like you want company," Rosita tells him.

"I could use a racing partner," Roland agrees.

"Good then." Rosita plucks the sack from his hand, shakes it out, and puts her right leg in it.

Roland looks at her warily as he slides his left leg in beside her.

Dianne and Tara join the race, as do two women from Oceanside and a pair of teenage siblings from the Kingdom. As Nabila puts her leg inside a sack beside Jerry's, she says, "I don't know about this."

"It'll be fun!" Jerry assures her.

"Just don't roll over on me. At least..." Nabila smiles. "Not in public."

Jerry flushes.

Enid and Liam hasten to join the line-up. "What did you do with Glenn, Jr.?" Carol asks as the young couple settles into their burlap sack beside her.

"He's with Aaron and Gracie."

The master of the games puts his whistle in his mouth and raises his arm. There's a sharp tweet, and Carol and Henry hobble forward. Carol gives it her best shot, but, in the end, it's Liam and Enid who win.

When Carol and Rosita get back to the bleachers, Khalid is standing up and tying his sash around his waist.

"I thought that was my favor," Rosita says.

"I thought you didn't want it." He cinches the sash roughly. "You discarded it." Kahlid thuds down onto the bleachers, which let off a metallic echo. Carol steps over his feet and takes her seat next to Daryl.

"I _do_ want it," Rosita replies as she sits down next to the disgruntled swordsman. "But maybe I'll take it off you later."

Khalid's dark brown eyes, beneath half-closed lids, turn slowly to her. "The sack race with Roland wasn't as satisfying as you hoped?"

"I think he might be gay," Rosita replies.

"Oh, I doubt that very much," Carol says.

"Why do you say that?" Rosita asks.

"Yeah," Daryl echoes. "What makes ya so damn sure?" He glances suspiciously at Roland, who has taken a seat at the far end of the first row.

"Because he was married and had four children."

"Oh."

"Gay guys get married and have kids all the time," Rosita reasons.

Footraces are called next, and Rosita decides to join the competition. When she goes down to compete, Khalid moves to the front rail of the bleachers to watch her.

With both out of earshot, Carol says, "Sounds like sour grapes to me. I think Rosita made a direct pass at Roland and got turned down."

"Hell, maybe Roland _is_ gay then."

Daryl's words worm their way beneath Carol's skin. She's never seen him hit on any woman, and all this time she's thought he didn't have much sexual feeling. But maybe he _does_. Maybe he just doesn't have much sexual feeling for _her_. "You think every man automatically wants to sleep with Rosita?"

"Nah. Not the married ones. Least…they don't _try_ to. _Most_ of 'em anyhow."

"And what about you?"

"What 'bout me?" he asks.

"Have _you_ tried to?"

"Tried what?"

"To sleep with Rosita," she answers.

" _Me_?" he asks. "You ain't serious."

His disbelieving tone causes the tension she didn't even realize had seized her muscles to unravel. She feels silly for suggesting it now. "Well, in my defense, you _are_ a man."

" _Rosita_? Hell no! I ain't no mantis. Don't want my head bit off after."

Carol snorts.

[*]

Rosita loses the footraces to one of the supply runners from Oceanside, but she comes back with the silver medal. "If Jesus were here, the Hilltop would have won that competition," she says.

Horseshoes are next, for the kids, but Judith doesn't win this time. In fact, she gets nowhere near the iron steaks. The shoes are too heavy, and a ten-year-old Oceanside boy wins.

Knife throwing follows, and Daryl walks down to the rail to get a better view of the field. He gives Carol a thumbs up when she puts her toe to the target line, unsheathes her new knife, and turns and looks at him.

Each competitor throws three different knives in three rounds. Carol wins the first round, but Ezekiel's soon-to-be queen Tyra wins the second, tying Carol for first place. Daryl leans anxiously forward over the rail on the last throw of the third and final round. He can't see the target well enough to tell if Carol's blade has hit the yellow or the red, and he half holds his breath as the judges add up the scores.

The master of the games strolls across the field toward Tyra, and Daryl mutters beneath his breath. But then the man veers right, goes straight to Carol, and lifts her hand in triumph.

"Hell yeah!" Daryl yells as the crowd cheers. "Hell yeah! Thatta girl!"

[*]

Daryl is growing increasingly nervous. Apparently archery is the highlight of the tournaments for some reason, because it's the last event on the schedule.

Now the falconeer – a man with wavy silver hair and a gray-white beard - comes out to the field to show off his trained bird of prey.

"Martin worked at the National Zoo with Ezekiel," Khalid explains to Rosita. "He was also an animal trainer. Birds instead of cats."

The falcon rests obediently on Martin's arm as Henry, serving as his assistant, opens a cage and releases two ducks. The ducks waddle onto the field. Henry kicks the air near them with his foot and sends them flying. The falconer thrusts the great bird from his arm.

"That thing's so damn cool," Daryl murmurs as the falcon accelerates, twists in the air, and swoops to brutally knock down one of the fleeing ducks before pursuing and capturing the second in its claws.

"It brought down a _deer_ once," Carol tells him.

"Damn."

"It brought down a Whisperer, too," Khalid says. "I saw it peck his eyes out during the war."

Daryl watches the mighty bird return the second duck to the feet of its master. "Sure would love to learn to hunt with one of those."

"Well, Martin would probably teach you to use one, if you wanted," Carol tells him. "If you just came to visit regularly for lessons."

Daryl studies her face, wondering if she's saying that because she misses him. "Could visit for lessons," he says. "Once a week maybe."

There's already something about Carol's smile that's almost contagious to Daryl. But when it's _him_ making her smile – and he hopes maybe it is right now - there's also a funny feeling somewhere in his chest, like the fluttering of wings.

He ducks his head and smiles at his boots.


	8. Chapter 8

After the display of falconry, there's still one more event before archery – the riflery competition. There's a flurry of activity as the competitors take the field. Two rows below Daryl, Enid hands Glenn, Jr. over to Liam and heads toward the aisle. Liam calls her back for a good-luck kiss, and soon she's clattering down the stairs, her rifle swinging from her shoulder.

Rosita and Carol leave Daryl and Khalid behind in the stands to compete. Aaron deposits Gracie with Judith under the watchful eye of Olivia's mother, who assists each of the little girls to put soft orange earplugs in their ears. Tara also takes the field to a cry of "Good luck!" from Dianne.

Oceanside offers up Cyndie, Beatrice, Kathy, the king's betrothed, and a woman Daryl doesn't recognize. From the Kingdom come six more competitors, among them Roland. By the time all the competitors are arranged, a row of sixteen riflemen stretches across a recently marked-out line on the otherwise faded AstroTurf, near the end zone. Targets are arranged at one hundred yards away, in front of the rusty, faded yellow goalposts. Beyond the field lies nothing but the chain link fence, woods, and then, somewhere beyond those woods, the Kingdom's perimeter fence.

Khalid slides closer to Daryl on the cool aluminum bench. "The way this works," he explains, "is that there are three rounds. They fire ten shots per round. The bottom six scorers will be eliminated at the end of each of the first two rounds, until only four remain to compete for the bronze, silver, and gold."

Daryl leans forward with his elbows on his knees to watch, but it's impossible to see the targets clearly. Instead, he admires Carol's controlled, kneeling stance and her laser-like focus as the whistle blows and she begins her steady fire.

The Kingdom may be competent with horse and lance, javelin and staff and sword, but at the end of the first round of firearms, five of their competitors are eliminated, along with one of the women from Oceanside. After the second round of firing, Roland is eliminated, along with Enid and the remaining four Oceanside women. That leaves only Carol, Rosita, Aaron, and Tara in the final round.

"Hilltop's gonna take all three medals," Daryl murmurs proudly. "M'people are the only ones still out there."

"You're not rooting for Carol?" Khalid asks with surprise.

"What?" It takes Daryl a moment to realize that because he was thinking of Carol as _his_ people, he wasn't thinking of her as representing the _Kingdom_. "Nah. Meant….Hilltop's gonna take the silver n' bronze. Carol's gonna take the gold of course."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Khalid tells him. "I think Rosita's taking the gold."

"Nah. She won't," Daryl insists. "Carol ain't been shootin' as long, but she's _better_."

"Care to wager?" Khalid asks.

Daryl sits up straighter. "Wager what?"

"One of those cigarettes I see in your pocket."

"'N what I get if'n ya lose?"

Khalid scratches the dark, black goatee that lines his face. Then he fishes in the pocket of his brown suede jacket and pulls out a single shot bottle of Vodka, which he displays to Daryl by holding it between his thumb and his forefinger.

"Deal," Daryl says.

"You realize we're both betting against our own communities?" He sighs and looks out at Rosita taking a kneeling position. "But the heart wants what the heart wants."

Daryl doesn't think it's Khalid's _heart_ that wants Rosita, but he doesn't say so.

As the final four competitors reload their magazines, Khalid says, "Let's sweeten the pot. Raise me another cigarette, and I'll raise you…" He pulls another single shot bottle out of his pocket and shakes it.

"Ya got a mini liquor store in there?"

"I found a crashed and abandoned airplane when I was out scouting last month. It went down in a field. The liquor was still intact. That's one thing that keeps well."

Daryl peers at the little bottle. "Don't want no sweet-ass apple schnapps."

"But with both, you could make your woman a vodka appletini tonight."

"My woman?" Daryl asks.

"Carol? She's not your woman?"

"Carol…" Daryl glances at her on the field where she's reloading her magazine. "Carol's 'er own woman."

"Oh...I just assumed, with you two sitting together...and her going to the Hilltop almost once a month, and the fact that I've never seen her with a boyfriend since she moved here.." Khalid shakes the vodka again. "Nevertheless, you could make her an apple martini tonight. _If_ she wins. If not, I suppose I'll be sharing a second cigarette with Rosita after our second round of wild sex." He extends his hand.

Khalid's confidence in his impending sexual conquest may be well placed, but he's damn sure wrong about winning the cigarettes. "'S a bet," Daryl agrees and shakes.

[*]

Daryl's front pocket is light two cigarettes when Carol returns to the stands, a silver medal swaying from her neck atop the gold she won for knife throwing.

"Congratulations," she tells Rosita as she sits down next to Daryl.

In front of them, Tara returns to sit next to Dianne, who tells her, "You were robbed. That bronze should have been yous."

"Aaron just has better sights," Tara agrees.

Carol clanks her medals together, but her lips form a thin line. Daryl can tell she's disappointed in herself for losing to Rosita. "Hey," he says. "Ya go _two_ medals now. Ain't no one else got two."

"Umm, hello, _I_ do," Rosita reminds him. "The silver from the footrace?" She slides the silver out from beneath her gold and thrusts it toward him.

"Oh. Yeah."

"And Jerry also has two," Khalid reminds him. "A bronze from the staff competition and a gold from javelin."

"And Roland," Carol adds. "He has a bronze from javelin and a gold from rings."

"A'ight, but ya got the two _best_ ones," Daryl insists.

Carol smiles. "Oh, I don't know. Archery is considered the most important sport in the tournament."

As if Daryl wasn't nervous enough.

"If only you'd won, Carol," Khalid says, "Daryl would be making you an appletini tonight. Instead, he lost two of his cigarettes to me."

"You _bet_ on me?" Carol asks.

Daryl mistakes her surprise for annoyance and scratches the back of his neck. "Well…'s just…"

She smiles. "You risked two cigarettes on me because you believed in me so much?"

"Well...Yeah," he admits.

"I'm sorry I lost you your cigarettes."

He shrugs. "Still got two more."

"So if you were planning to make me an appletini tonight," Carol says, "I guess that means you plan to room with me?"

"Uh…" He doesn't want to sound like he was _expecting_ to be invited to room with her.

"You might as well. Judith's got her sleepover. You need a roof over your head. It's supposed to rain in the middle of the night, according to old lady Mildred's leg."

"It's a premiere weather-telling device, that old woman's leg," Khalid agrees.

"I have one of the classroom trailers all to myself." Carol lost her little white house. It burned in the War with the Whsiperers, but the fire didn't reach the gates of the Kingdom. "There's plenty of room."

"A'ight," Daryl agrees. "Ain't brought my sleepin' bag though." He's not sure why he said that. He can certainly sleep on the floor of her trailer without a sleeping bag. He's slept on the forest floor without one before.

Carol smiles in that way that gives wings to the nerves in his chest. "We'll figure something out."

[*]

Daryl has ten rivals in the archery tournament. Five of them are in their late teens or early twenties, among them Liam. The other five, like Dianne, are older adults. Every single one of them is from the Kingdom. No one from Oceanside has dared to compete, and no one else from the Hilltop has set foot on the field.

Daryl watches the archers casually sliding their leather archery gloves into place and suddenly remembers that the Kingdom has been training archers since before Daryl ever set foot in it. Archery practice has always been part of the Kingdom's morning routine. What if he doesn't even manage to take the _bronze_?

"Do you need to borrow a glove?" Liam asks him.

"Nah." Daryl raises his arm and nods at the sleeve of his black leather jacket. "Doubt a sting's gonna hurt with this on."

"You're going to shoot while wearing a long-sleeve jacket?" Dianne asks.

He shot his crossbow half of October wearing this jacket, and he didn't have any problem bringing down game. Defensively, he snarls, "Gotta problem with that?"

Dianne shrugs coolly. "If you want to get string drag and end up shooting left, I suppose that's your choice."

The master of the games steps up to the loosely huddled group of competitors. "There will be six rounds," he explains. "Two rounds for each bow, at 30 yards and 60 yards for compound and crossbow, and at 80 yards and a 120 yards for longbow."

" _Only_ 120?" a tall, thin, man with light brown skin and olive-green eyes snorts. His long, black hair flows out from beneath a black leather headband that's decorated with triangular patterns of blue and red. "I could do that with my eyes closed."

"That's as far as we can go on the football field," the games master explains. "You will have six arrows per round. The yellow bullseye is a ten. The red is an eight, the blue is a six, the black is a four, and the last, outer white ring is a two."

"No one _here's_ going to land in the white," the man with the black headband says flippantly. But then he looks Daryl over like he's not quite so sure _no one's_ going to land in the white.

"The scores will be tallied from each round," the master of the games continues. "And you will be ranked by your total score from all six rounds. Those without a personal bow in every category may use the Kingdom's bows." He waves his hand toward a stand that is being rolled onto the field by Henry, from which a variety of bows swing. Meanwhile, two other teenagers set up quivers full of arrows along the white thirty-yard line. The targets are in the endzone.

The master of the games inspects the personal bows of the archers to determine whether they meet competition regulations. He looks suspiciously at the modifications Daryl has made to his crossbow, but ultimately declares it regulation. However, he makes Dianne trade out her compound bow for one of the Kingdom communal bows – something about the fixed pin sights giving her an unfair advantage. She grumbles, but she accepts the game master's decision.

Daryl is handed one of the Kingdom's compound bows for the first round and takes his assigned place before a standing quiver of arrows. He's been practicing all summer and fall with a compound bow at the Hilltop, and he _knows_ he's decent, but he still feels nervous as he sees everyone line up confidently, Dianne to his right and a red-headed woman to his left.

He sets his bow on the AstroTurf for a moment and shucks out of his long-sleeve black leather jacket, trying to ignore the smirk on Dianne's face as he does so. The jacket pools on the worn green behind him. Underneath, he's wearing a charcoal gray, button-down shirt. He rolls up the shirt sleeves almost to his shoulders.

" _Nice_ arms," says the redhead to his left.

Daryl doesn't know how to respond to that, so he pretends not to hear her. But the man with the black leather headband, who stands to the redhead's left, does. He leans over her and looks at Daryl through narrowed eyes. "Who are you, exactly?" he asks.

"Daryl," Daryl replies. "Dixon. 'M from – "

"- the Hilltop," the redhead finishes for him. "You're the one who got the bomb planted in the Whisperers' base, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Cassandra." She nods her head to the man with the black leather headband. "And this is my husband Avonaco."

"Avocado?" Daryl asks. Carol once told him that he'd have an easier time remembering names if he repeated them after every introduction.

" _Avonaco_ ," the man replies sternly. "It's Cheyenne. It means Leaning Bear."

Daryl's not sure why a bear would lean, or, if it did lean, why that would be worth noting, but he refrains from saying so. He also thinks this Avocado fellow is about as Cheyenne as Daryl is African. But Carol once told him that everyone gets to reinvent themselves in the apocalypse.

The game master holds up a hand. "On the whistle, you may load your first arrow and begin shooting. Shoot at your own pace, but remember you have only four minutes total."

Daryl seizes the grip of his borrowed compound bow. He glances in Carol's direction and finds her at the front railing of the bleachers, watching closely.

 _Don't let me screw up bad in front of 'er_ , he mutters in silent prayer.

And then he waits for the whistle.


	9. Chapter 9

The whistle blows. Arrows rasp from quivers, woosh, and thunk. Daryl's not used to shooting a bow in line with other people. The sound distracts him, and his first two shots with the compound bow land in the black. By the third, though, he's made it to the blue, and by the fourth to the red. By the fifth shot, he's grown accustomed to the rhythmic rasp and whooshing, and his last two arrows end in the yellow.

The arrows are recovered, scores from round one are tallied, and the archers are sent to carry their quivers back to the sixty-yard line. Daryl avoids looking at Carol watching him from the railing as the games master reads off the current places. With only 42 points, he's in fifth, behind Cassandra, Liam, Avocado (Daryl's not going to be able to pronounce that name), and Dianne, who takes the lead with a perfect 60. The faux Indian is smirking at him, but Dianne is concentrating on positioning herself.

[*]

Khalid leans against the rail beside Carol. "Your Hilltop boyfriend's not doing so well."

Carol's not sure if Khalid is being sarcastic about the boyfriend statement, so she doesn't correct him. "He'll do better this next round, and he'll kill with the crossbow. In fact, I'm pretty sure he'll take the gold."

"Oh, I doubt that very much. You know how good the Kingdom's archers are. He might beat a few of the teenagers. But there's no way on earth he'll beat Dianne or Avonaco. I mean, Avonaco's Cheyenne."

"Is the though?" Carol asks.

Khalid shrugs. "Well, he's a great archer anyway."

"I think you'll be surprised to see how Daryl performs. He'll take the gold," Carol insists.

"He won't even take the silver."

"You're wrong."

"Care to make a wager on it? Bet me one of your apples for a return of Daryl's cigarettes. If he wins either the silver or the gold, you win the bet."

Carol watches the last archer fall in line and Daryl rustle the arrows in his standing quiver, the muscles of his arms glistening in the evening sun. "I want that appletini, though. If Daryl takes the silver or gold, you give me the apple schnapps and the vodka, _and_ Daryl's cigarettes. I'll bet three apples."

"Four apples."

"Fine. I'm not losing my apples anyway."

Rostia now drapes an arm over the front rail of the bleachers. Behind her, a person she's blocking grumbles and shifts to the side. "What's going on down here?" she asks.

"I've bet Carol that Daryl won't take the silver or gold. I'm winning four apples, so I can serve you breakfast in bed in the morning."

"Don't be too confident," Rosita warns him.

Khalid's face falls. "My apologies."

"I mean about Daryl not placing highly. I've already decided I'm sleeping with you tonight."

A dimpled grin breaks out over Khalid's face.

[*]

Fortunately, because Daryl has adjusted to the sound of others shooting, he shoots the next round better than the first. In fact, the sound becomes like a kind of music to him, starting slowly, mounting, and ending with a drum roll:

 _Rasp-rasp-rasp-rasp-rasp  
Woosh-whoosh-rasp-rasp  
Woosh-woosh-rasp-rasp  
Rasp-woosh-rasp-woosh  
Woosh-thunk-woosh-thunk  
Woosh-thunk-whoosh-thunk  
Woosh-thunk-thunk  
Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!_

When the judges recover and score the arrows, he has five in the yellow and one in the red, while the first through fourth place holders all score worse than they did in the first round. He moves up to third place, with a total of 100 to Avocado's 104 and Dianne's 110. Liam and Cassandra round out the top five.

But then the archers are made to move back to the eighty-yard line, which means the longbow is next. Daryl hasn't shot a longbow since he was maybe ten years old, and that was a _toy_ one.

As he's handed his borrowed bow, and he takes his place behind the line, he hears Carol shout, "Go, Daryl!" and he can feel his cheeks flush a bright red.

Avocado leans forward in line to look over his wife at Daryl. He smirks. "Sounds like you've got your own cheering section. Too bad you're going to disappoint her when I leave you in the dust this round."

Daryl grits his teeth together, settles into a comfortable stance, readies his borrowed longbow, and anxiously waits for the whistle.

[*]

Dianne is clearly an instinctive shooter when it comes to the longbow. She draws and shoots in a single motion, without holding at full draw. Daryl, however, holds. He's aiming, even without sights. But on the release, the string snaps his arm and causes him to curse, and the arrow does worse than land in the white.

It lands in the _turf_.

When he draws his second arrow, Dianne is already on her fourth and Avocado is on his third. The string doesn't scathe the flesh of Daryl's arm this time, and the arrow at least makes into the white. His third and fourth arrows hit the blue, which gives him a boost of confidence, but then he somehow manages to snap himself again with the string and his arrow goes back into the black again. Everyone is done shooting except him. "Fifteen seconds!" the game master calls, and Daryl, racing out the clock, rasps an arrow from the quiver, loads, and shoots in one fluid motion without bothering to aim. It goes straight into the red – an inch away from the yellow bull's eye. "Well hell," he mutters.

"That's what happens when you don't think too much," Dianne tells him. "I'm sure you don't when you're shooting crossbow. So don't do it with longbow, either. Just _feel_ the shot."

He nods. Then he calls over Dianne to Liam. "Hey, kid! Maybe I'll borrow that glove after all."

[*]

Carol watches the archers move back all the way to the end zone, Daryl sliding a brown leather archery glove over his arm as he walks. The master of the games reads off the places. Daryl has fallen all the way down to sixth place, with a total score of only 126, way behind Dianne's new total of 170. Avocado is in second with 154, and after him falls Liam, then Cassandra, and finally a teenage girl named Elizabeth. _That's_ the girl Carol hopes Henry will eventually fall for, instead of that annoying Rachel from Oceanside, but Elizabeth, at seventeen, is much too old for him. When Henry's eighteen and she's twenty-one, however….

"Those apples sure are sure going to taste good," Khalid says.

"He'll recover," Carol insists. "You'll see."

"He's in _sixth_ place. He's _twenty-eight_ points behind the silver."

"You'll see."

[*]

At this point, Daryl is losing to a teenager, Enid's twenty-year-old boyfriend, a fake Indian, and the woman who married that fake Indian. It's humiliating.

Cassandra's green eyes caress his arms. "Those really _are_ nice arms."

"Too bad they're useless," Avocado says.

"Oh, don't be jealous, honey bear. Just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't look at the menu."

"The menu's just for show," Avocado tells her. "You'll feast on a _real_ meal tonight." He winks at his wife, and she laughs.

Reluctantly, as Daryl tries to get a more comfortable grip on the longbow in his hand, he glances toward the stands. Carol's too far away to see clearly now, but she's still there, at the rail. She hasn't slunk back to the bleachers in humiliation yet.

He swallows and returns his attention to the targets. He tries to make the field and people around him disappear, and his mind engulfs only the bow and the target. He takes Dianne's advice this time, and he tries to _feel_ the shot.

He doesn't pause long to aim, and with his borrowed glove, he doesn't have to worry about the possible sting of the string. Once again, his score goes up at the _farther_ distance, while everyone else does worse than they did at the closer range.

[*]

The games master reads the scores as the field runners return the arrows to the quivers that have been moved to the thirty-yard line again.

Dianne is in first place, with 226, followed by Avonaco, then Liam, then Cassandra, and finally Daryl with 174.

"See, he moved up a place," Carol says.

" _One_ place," Khalid tells her through a half laugh. "And there are only two rounds left."

"But they're the crossbow rounds."

[*]

Daryl hands over his borrowed longbow to the game assistant and welcomes the old, familiar crossbow into his grasp. The weapon feels like an extension of his own limb. The targets aren't even _moving_. This is the first time in years he'll be shooting his crossbow at a non-moving target. Nothing could be simpler.

Every one of his shots goes straight into the yellow, which brings his total to 234. Dianne, uncomfortable with the weight and feel of a crossbow, does poorly, scoring no bullseyes, and ending this fifth round of the competition with a total of 264. Cassandra and Liam – clearly not as comfortable with the crossbow either - drop behind Daryl, but Avocado remains ahead of him with 240.

[*]

Khalid's mouth has fallen slightly open.

"I told you not to be too confident," Rosita tells him. "He's in third place now."

"Well, _maybe_ hell get the _bronze_ ," Khalid concedes.

"I sure am looking forward to my appletini," Carol says.

"Sixty yards!" the master of the games announces, and the archers pick up their quivers and move.

[*]

Daryl loads his first arrow, which, for crossbow, they're permitted to do before the whistle blows. He glances into the stands, from which Carol gives him the thumbs up. He nods back, feeling less embarrassed now that he's in his element. Judith, who is standing on the bleachers in the first row, raises her hands above her own head, claps them, and shouts, "My Daryl! My Daryl! My Daryl!" Olivia's mother ushers her down from her precarious position and makes her sit again.

Daryl smiles and returns his attention to the target.

"Got any tips for me?" Dianne asks as they wait on the line.

"Afraid of losin'?" Daryl scoffs.

"I gave you some advice with the longbow, and it helped."

She's right. She did. And the competition aside, Daryl has a lot of respect for Dianne's natural skill. "Ya gotta brace it more," he says. "'Til ya get more use to it. Pull it in to yer shoulder more."

"Thanks."

The shrill tweet of the whistle fills the stadium.

Daryl doesn't score a perfect 60 this time. He gets one arrow in the red instead of the yellow. But that brings his grand total to 292. He glances at the other targets, and though it's not possible to tell from this distance, it looks like they're all in the black and blue, with only the occasional red.

The game master announces Avocado's score as a 46, which drops him below Daryl. "Guess ya _leaned_ a little too far, there, Leanin' Bear," Daryl scoffs.

Avocado glares at him and takes a step forward, but Cassandra puts a hand on his wrist and says, "Don't go there, honey bear."

[*]

Khalid sighs, slips his hand into his jacket pocket, and hands Carol first the cigarettes and then the booze. "Well, at least I was right about him not getting the gold."

"They haven't reported all the scores yet," Carol says.

"He might have gotten the gold," Rosita agrees.

"Against Dianne?" Khalid asks. "Not a chance."

Dianne's score is still in question. The games master has called over a second scoring judge to examine her target and make an on-the-line call between the black and the blue. The judges confer, heads bent, and then the game master walks away from the targets, stops halfway between them and the archers, and announces in his booming voice, "Twenty-eight!" Carol quickly does the math in her head and is a step ahead of the games master when he declares, "That brings Dianne's total to 292. It's a tie!"

Carol looks at Khalid and grins. "He got the gold."

"It's a _tie_ ," Khalid says. "He _shares_ the gold."

"Shoot off!" Judith screams at the top of her lungs. She's standing on the bleacher seat again. "Shoot off!"

"Shoot off!" the crowd echoes in agreement. "Shoot off!" they chant as they stomp against the floor of the bleachers, and the aluminum clangs and rattles. "Shoot off! Shoot off! Shoot off!"

[*]

"The audience is calling for a shoot off," the games master says to Daryl and Dianne, and the crowd goes gradually silent as it watches what's going on down in the field. "We have enough medals that you can _share_ the gold. You could each leave this field with your own gold medal and split the bushel of apples. But if you want to duke it out, we'll hold another six rounds with just you two competing."

Dianne adjusts her archer's glove and looks at Daryl. "What do you say?"

Daryl's fairly sure, now that he's accustomed to the sounds of competition and has a little better sense of the longbow, he'll beat Dianne and take the gold for himself. And then she would have the silver and he'd have the pleasure of knocking Avocado down to the bronze. But over Dianne's shoulder he spies Liam digging at the turf with the toe of his boot, his head bent down in dejection.

If Daryl and Dianne _share_ the gold, that means Avocado gets the silver and Liam gets the bronze. And the young man probably very much wants a medal to take back to his girlfriend Enid, who awaits him in the stands, and to show off to his father Roland, who has already won two himself. But if Daryl knocks down Dianne to the silver, and Avocado to the bronze, Liam wins nothing.

Daryl looks away from Liam and meets Dianne's eyes. "Be honored to share the gold with ya."

Dianne holds his eyes, and he thinks she might not accept the tie, that she wants to prove herself the better archer. But then she raises her hand, holds it out to him, and says, "Likewise."

The two archers shake, and when they unclasp hands, the games master seizes their wrists – one with each hand, and raises Daryl's right and Dianne's left arm into the air in triumph.

The disappointed crowd, thirsty for a shoot off, boos.


	10. Chapter 10

Daryl is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek from Carol when he returns to the stands, and while she's kissing him, she slips his two cigarettes back into the front pocket of his charcoal shirt.

"Congratulations," she whispers, leaving his flesh tingling when she steps away.

[*]

The scent of barbecue pig and chicken wafts through the air as people settle onto benches at outdoor picnic tables. Tomato soup is served to whet the appetite, in iron bowls with handles. The banquet goers lift the bowls and sip the sweet and tangy hot liquid. At least, most of them sip. Daryl slurps. "'S good. Yer recipe?"

Carol, who sits to his right, replies, "Yes. The fresh basil is the key. And the cream we got from the Hilltop." The Kingdom doesn't have cows and goats like the Hilltop now does, but it has a large chicken coop, a sizable pigpen, a rabbit farm, a potato plot, and several vegetable gardens.

At the table next to them, Enid, with one arm draped over Liam's neck and sitting on his lap, lifts his bronze medal and says, "Shiny." Liam laughs proudly and kisses her.

Carol watches them and realizes that Daryl must not have fought Dianne for the gold so that Liam would get the bronze. "I thought you said no young man wants victory thrown to him."

"What?"

She nods at the couple as Enid slides off Liam's lap and sits on the bench next to him.

"Weren't _thrown_ 'em," Daryl mutters. "Kid won it fair and square. Third highest score."

Carol thinks of telling him it was sweet, what he did, but that's not the right word. Daryl isn't _sweet_. He's _kind_. He's kinder than most men she's met in her life - in a subtle, quiet way that seldom seeks – or receives – notice.

But Carol's noticed: a road walked for Sophia, a Cherokee rose in a beer bottle, a story told to buoy her hopes, an arm supporting her in her grief, a hand holding her back from having to kill a walker-child.

And Carol's probably not the only one who's noticed. Carl Grimes once told her, in a rare moment of peace in Alexandria, what Daryl did back in the prison, when she was presumed dead. Carl had just lost his mother, and his father wasn't mentally there for him in his grief, but Daryl told him a story of his own mother's death, and the boy felt less alone. And then when Daryl returned to feed Judith for the first time, and Carl was trying to think of a name for his little sister, the boy's heart grew heavy and lonely again – a litany of the dead fell from his lips in a roll call of potential names – every woman who had been lost, including his own mother. But Daryl ruptured the tense sorrow by calling Judith "Little Ass Kicker" and making Carl laugh.

A crude joke to lift a heavy heart – a victory shared to lift a disappointed soul - that's the kind of kindness Daryl is. "You're a good man, Daryl," she says softly.

Daryl slowly lowers the pewter tankard of mead he's been sipping and swallows the brew caught in his throat. His blue eyes study her face, as though trying to make sense of the disembodied words that have just left her lips. But he's saved from having to figure it out by a table server scooping up his empty soup bowl and another setting the main dish before him. "Damn that smells good. Ya make it?"

"I made the _sauce_. I didn't do the actual barbecuing."

Daryl digs in greedily. Carol smiles and lifts her glass of wine – she opted to spend her last blue ticket on wine instead of mead – and glances over at the other table, where Liam is now cutting the corn off the cob for little Glenn, Jr. Liam's good with the boy, Carol thinks, and will likely be a good father himself one day – but hopefully not _too_ soon.

When she looks back at their own table, Henry, who is sitting next to Daryl, hastily sets down Daryl's tankard right by Daryl's plate. He was sipping from it.

Carol raises an eyebrow at him.

"What?" Henry says defensively. "Daryl _gave_ the rest to me."

"When he thought I wasn't looking?" Carol asks.

Daryl pushes the tankard back to Henry. "'M done with it."

"He's _fourteen_ ," Carol reminds him.

"Hell, I's twelve when I had my first beer," Daryl says. "Didn't stunt my growth none." He rips some meat from a bone.

Carol tries not to laugh, but says more sternly to Henry, "Fine. Just finish it."

Henry grins and lifts the tankard. But after a couple of sips, he pushes it back to Daryl. "It tastes like bitter honey."

Across the table from them, Dianne and Tara sit almost shoulder to shoulder, eating their banquet meal in relative silence. "You're not much of a talker," Tara tells Dianne.

Dianne shifts a little uncomfortably on the bench. "How about those Mets?" she asks, and Tara laughs.

"How about that Kingdom?" Khalid asks. He's sitting next to Dianne and across from Rosita, who took up the free space next to Carol on the long bench. "Look at all the medals we took compared to the Hilltop and Oceanside."

"Well it was _your_ tournament," Rosita reminds him. "And you have four times as many people here as we do. If Maggie was here, she would have won that rings thing, though. Jesus would have won the footraces. And we would have had two more golds."

"Really?" Roland asks skeptically from the next table over, where he sits with Enid and Liam. "You think Maggie would win the rings?"

"Don't get me wrong," Rosita tells him, "You're a good rider, but she's better."

"I know she's good. I saw her ride in the war, but a lance is different from a gun. She might outshoot me on a horse, but I don't think she'd out- _lance_ me."

"Well, I guess we'll see next year," Rostia tells him.

"Is she going to come next year?" Roland asks skeptically.

"We'll drag her," Tara declares. "God knows she needs a break from leading."

Daryl sucks the barbecue sauce off his fingers, slurping the digits out of his mouth one by one. Cassandra walks by the table, a tankard in each of her hands, and stops and smiles at Daryl. "It looks like someone has more talents than archery," she says with a wiggle of her eyebrow. Daryl slowly slides his last finger out of his mouth with an uncomfortable look on his face. "You should come by and see me some time," Cassandra tells him.

The pass is not lost even on Daryl, though Carol wonders if that's because Cassandra was making passes at him on the archery field. "Ain't ya married?" Daryl asks.

"It's an _open_ marriage," she tells him.

"Hell's a - " Before Daryl can finish asking, Avonaco struts up behind Cassandra.

He plucks the second tankard from her hand and says, "It is _not_ an open marriage." He narrows his eyes at Daryl, puts a hand on the small of his wife's back, and pushes her on to another table.

Everyone at the table bursts into laughter, and Daryl's cheeks turn a darkened red.

[*]

Daryl follows Carol to her trailer as the sun slowly sinks on the horizon. They pass a row of three outhouses located near an outdoor hand pump. "Those are the nearest facilities," she says. "If you need them tonight. I sure do miss flush toilets."

They walk over the blacktop, across a painted, faded map of the United States that has flecked away to a mere shadow, beyond the rusted basketball hoop from which dangles a few remnants of now-gray net, to a field with six classroom trailers. "This one's mine." Carol mounts the wooden stairs and throws open the door. "Home sweet home."

Daryl didn't know they'd be staying the night, so he has very little in the light pack he brought with him. It contains only water, an extra knife, some spare ammo for his handgun, and some matches. He sets it down on the floor of the trailer after he follows Carol inside and props his crossbow against the wall. The setting sun filters through the surprisingly clean, off-white lace curtains that cover the trailer's three windows. The light casts a hazy glow on the books stacked on the surface of the coffee table, which is situated before a floral love seat. End tables rest on both sides of the love seat, each with two shelves stacked with more books.

"Didn't know ya was such a reader."

"I have a lot of free time to myself in the evenings," she says. "What do you do with yours?"

He shrugs. "Look at the stars. Sleep."

"You never read?"

"Read to Little Ass Kicker sometimes."

In the corner of the trailer is a small wood stove, vented through a pipe lodged in a hole made in the roof, likely for heating in the late fall and winter. She also has a manual ceiling fan with a hand-crank chain above the bed for the summer. Some man's been fixing this place up for her. "Who installed all that?" He points to the stove and fan.

He figures she'll say Ezekiel, back from when the man was still trying to get in her pants, before he found his bride-to-be, but she says, "Roland."

Daryl likes that even less, because, as far as he knows, Roland doesn't _have_ a bride-to-be, and Carol clearly thinks he's handsome. His throat reverberates with a distrustful "Mhmmm."

"He installed them in all the trailers. He used to be an all-around handyman."

"Though he was a horse farmer."

"He grew up on a horse farm, and it inherited when he was thirty-four. But from eighteen until then…he was a handyman in the city. Baltimore."

Carol sure knows a lot about Roland. Daryl tries not to think what that might mean as he surveys the rest of the trailer. At the far end, beneath one curtained window, is a queen-sized bed in a dark oak frame, neatly made up. There's a wardrobe against the opposite wall, made from a metal storage cabinet, and a chest at the foot of the bed. Toward the middle of the trailer, flush against the wall beneath another window, are four school-desks pushed together to form a table. It's draped with a white tablecloth, and two blue school chairs rest on each end. Daryl wonders if she ever has a breakfast guest. Roland maybe. But Khalid said he'd _never_ seen her with a boyfriend, so maybe she just likes the symmetry of the two chairs.

A teacher's desk is flush against the wall on the opposite side of the breakfast table, with shelving built above it. Her bushel of apples from her knife throwing win are on it, as well as Daryl's half bushel. Someone delivered them after the tournament.

"That's my desk, countertop, _and_ pantry," she says, walking over and rolling open the deep, bottom drawer to reveal several mason jars full of preserves. On the surface of the desk are three jugs of water, and above it some shelving that holds some dishes, cups, and utensils. "There's a firepit and a charcoal grill out front that all six of these trailers share for cooking, when we aren't having the big communal meals. We get fresh water from the hand pump fed by the wells." She walks over to the wardrobe, opens it, and brings him some folded clothes on top of a folded towel. "Take these when you go with the men to the bathing tents. I think they'll fit you."

He looks at the stack – gray sweatpants, a white undershirt, a pair of boot socks, and a pair of boxers. "Hell ya get these?" he asks suspiciously. "Ya got a man?" He hadn't meant to ask it, but it comes out.

She chuckles. "No. I picked them up on a run. I was going to make something out of the sweatpants material but haven't gotten around to it. The T-shirt and boxers I wear as pajamas sometimes."

Daryl can't help but picturing her in the white cotton shirt, no bra beneath, the outline of her nipples pressed against the cloth, the hem of the shirt falling just to her thighs, leaving only a teasing hint of the boxers beneath. He looks over her shoulder so he's not looking at her.

"Don't worry. They're clean. I washed them."

"Wait." His eyes return to her face. "Hell ya mean, when I go to the _bathin' tent_?" They don't have any _bathing tents_ at the Hilltop. They have basins of water for spot cleaning, outdoor hand pumps, and the stream in the woods beyond the second farm field.

"Just go with the men to the men's tent and do what they do. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"I gotta take a bath? But I just took one 'n the stream four days ago!"

"A little more soap and water won't melt you, Pookie."

He shakes his head. "I ain't got to do this."

"You do if you plan to share a bed with me," she says as she returns to the wardrobe and pulls out her own clothes and towel.

 _What_ did she just say? "We're sharin' a bed?"

"Well, it's not as if you're going to fit on that tiny love seat."

Daryl's still processing this news when Carol tilts her head down to catch his eyes. "It's not as if we've never bunked together before," she says. "Would you prefer not to?"

"Nah! No. 'S fine."

"Well, then let's head to the bathing tents."


	11. Chapter 11

Darkness slowly envelopes the last glowing remnants of the purple sky as the men are led by oil lamplight to a long canvas tent and the women, along with the little boys under six, to another tent some distance away.

As they approach the tent, Daryl sees that wooden troughs, having already been filled with cold water from the wells, are now being mixed with boiling water from the kettles heated on the fire pits on either side of the long tent. The troughs stand at about the height of an average man's waist.

The men enter, and someone lowers the canvas flaps on the sides for privacy. The tent is now filled with the glow of a few oil lamps, and the shadow of the flames that dance from the firepits outside. Daryl hardly notices the crispness of the autumn air with the heat from the outside fires, the bodies packed into the tent, and the steam rising off the surface of the water, dancing up, and wisping through an opening in the canvass ceiling.

Daryl must look confused, because Ezekiel tells him, "Communal bathing is how we conserve water and still get three full baths a week. We don't have a freshwater stream like the Hilltop, or an ocean like Oceanside. And our pond's not large or clean enough for bathing."

The men lay their towels and fresh clothes on the wooden benches behind the troughs and strip down. Daryl feels suddenly like he did the first day in the junior high boys' locker room, when he was terrified to reveal his scars to the mocking and prying eyes of the other boys, and so he dressed and undressed in a bathroom stall. But there are no bathroom stalls here.

Daryl leaves on his sleeveless white t-shirt and boxers as he takes a spot at one of the several troughs. He's not the only one to be playing it shy – at the far end of the tent, Aaron has taken off his shirt but left his boxers on, and Eugene has left both his shirt and boxers on.

But when Daryl sees the three deep and jagged scars on Roland's chest, the claw marks stretching across Ezekiel's stomach, the patch of crinkled, burned skin running down from Khalid's left shoulder, and the healed-over bullet wound on Jerry's side, he's reminded that they all bear battle scars, and that no one will even think to ask about _his_ old wounds. Daryl yanks his t-shirt over his head and tosses it back behind him onto the bench.

Daryl imitates the men as they first splash their faces and chests and arms with water and then soap up using soft sponges and hard, handmade bars of tan soap located on shelves along the troughs. They wash faces and hands, arms and sweaty chests. Some men plunge their heads beneath the water and then shake off, while others just wash behind their ears.

Daryl wonders if the women have all taken off their clothes beneath the women's tent, too…if Carol is standing stark naked before a trough, soaping up her…

 _Jesus._

He shouldn't be thinking about that.

But he _is_ thinking about it.

The vision is shattered when Liam swings his arm across the surface of the trough and splashes Roland in the face. Roland splashes his son back, and Khalid, hit in the crossfire, cries, "Cut it out!"

Roland and Liam chuckle. The autumn air chills Daryl's skin as the warm water seeps down his chest and drips into the waistband of his boxers. He quickly sheds them and cleans below before seizing his towel and joining the men in drying off. Then he slips into the clean, red boxers Carol gave him.

They're _silk_.

He's never worn silk boxers in his life, and they feel strangely slick against his damp skin.

With their towels now draped around their necks, and wearing only their boxers, the men begin scooping the water out of troughs into buckets and sit on the benches to scrub and rinse their feet and lower legs. Then they dump the buckets back into the troughs again. Khalid slams a lever at the end of their trough, and the bottom drops open, releasing the now murky brown water into the drainage gutters below, which send it flowing out of the tent, down a slight hill, and into a storm drain.

Daryl finishes dressing. Beside him, Liam sits drying his feet. He asks Roland, "Hey, Dad, do you think maybe you could take Glenn, Jr. tonight? You know, you've got that trundle in your trailer."

"Why doesn't he sleep with Enid?" Roland replies.

"Well…you know…she's had him all day. She could use a break."

"Mhmhm….And where will Enid be sleeping tonight?"

Liam doesn't answer, but instead pulls his shirt over his head.

"In _your_ room in the school?" Roland asks.

"I've got the space!" Liam says defensively. "She can have the mattress, and I can…I can sleep on the floor."

"Mhmhm…Listen, son, let me be direct. Either don't go all the way with her, or make damn sure you pull out."

Khalid chuckles, and Liam flushes red. "Jesus, _Dad_!"

"You're much too young to be a father," Roland tells him, "and she's much too young to be a mother. She's only eighteen."

"You were a father at twenty."

"And I was much too young."

Liam slides one sockless foot into his boot. "But you and mom were happy together."

"Yes," Roland says quietly. "We were. But it wasn't _easy_."

Daryl's just finished dressing when he turns to find Avocado, who was bathing several troughs down, standing right before his face, his chest puffed out and nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Daryl steps back instinctively and hits his leg against the bench.

"I'm only going to warn you once," Avocado tells him. "You stay the hell away from my wife."

"He hasn't tried to come anywhere near your wife," Khalid tells him as he laces up his boot. "I think it's been the other way around."

"Are you insulting Cassandra's honor?" Avocado asks Khalid.

"Don't play the innocent fool," Roland tells him. "You know I broke it off with Cassandra because she cheated on me with Khalid."

Khalid nods. "And then I broke it off with her because she cheated on me with _you_ , Avonaco."

"Served you right," Roland tells Khalid."What's good for the goose..."

"You were with Cassandra?" Liam asks, his head jerking toward his father. "When? For how long?"

"When we first moved here," Roland tells him. "Just for a few weeks."

"And you didn't _tell_ me?"

"I would have, if it had become serious." Roland plops down on the bench to pull on his boots.

"But… _Cassandra_?" asks Liam, looking at his father with disbelief.

"I didn't know what she was like at the time," Roland assures him.

"What the hell does _that_ mean?" Avocado spits. "You didn't know what she was _like_ at the time?"

"It means, perchance," Ezekiel says, resting a dark, heavy hand on Avocado's light, brown shoulder, "that no _one_ man can possibly satisfy her. If you're not amenable to a polyandrous arrangement, then I firmly suggest you divorce instead of picking fights with every past, present, and future object of her attention."

"Did _you_ fuck her too?" Avocado asks.

Ezekiel sighs and slides his hand from the other man's shoulder before wandering off to put on his boots.

" _Did_ he?" Avocado asks Khalid.

Khalid laughs.

Daryl spies Aaron making an escape from the tent with an oil lamp, so he grabs his balled up, dirty clothes and scurries off after him. "Fuckin' lockerroom bullshit," he mutters as he falls in step beside his old friend.

"Tell me about it," Aaron agrees.

They walk past the women's bathing tent, which a few of the women are already leaving, though Daryl doesn't see Carol among them. He _does_ see a young teenage boy peeking through the canvas flaps in one corner, and the night patrolman grab him behind the ear, pull him away, and literally boot him the ass, growling, "Ezekiel will have you on outhouse duty for the next two weeks."

The young man rubs his ass, says, "It was worth it," and runs on.

Aaron chuckles as they continue to walk, now on a cobblestone path weaving toward the school.

"Where ya stayin' tonight?" Daryl asks.

"They're setting up cots and bed rolls in the gym for those of us who weren't so lucky as to find lovers for the night. I take it you're staying with Carol?"

"Uh…Yeah." Aaron makes it sound like he and Carol are _lovers_ , just because they're…well, sharing a bed. But like Carol said, they've bunked together before, on the forest floor, on the road…it won't be the first time they've slept side by side.

It _will_ be the first time they've slept side by side in her _own_ bed though, the first time they've done so right after a bath, and the first time they've done so after a day during which she kissed him _twice_ , and one of those times straight on the _lips_.

Daryl's thinking about all this, like loose pieces of a jigsaw puzzle he's struggling to put together, when he realizes he's followed Aaron all the way to the front door of the school.

"Aren't you staying with Carol tonight?" Aaron asks again.

Some of the women are going inside, among them a skipping Judith with her new best friend Olivia. She waves to Daryl, and he waves back.

"Yeah." Daryl nods to him. "Nite."

And then his feet turn back to Carol.


	12. Chapter 12

Not far from the school, Daryl passes the Falconeer, turns back, and calls, "Hey, Falcon man!"

The silver-haired man stops walking, chuckles, and says, "Call me Robert."

"'M Daryl. From the Hilltop."

"I know. Your reputation proceeds you."

His reputation?

Daryl must look confused, because Robert says, "You won the archery tournament. And I've heard much of your valor in the War with the Whsiperers."

His _valor_? Ezekiel's not the only one who talks funny around here. "Anyhow...'m the main hunter over there. At the Hilltop. Was wonderin' if maybe ya could teach me to use one of them birds? If I came to the Kingdom once a week. Could pay ya for the lessons."

"Well, I'm already training Henry and some of the other boys on Wednesdays and Sundays, in the afternoon. You're welcome to join us either of those days. Or both."

"Sundays," Daryl says. The Hilltop holds Council meetings on Wednesdays. Maggie isn't going to want him out of town then. That and Carol might have mentioned that the Kingdom has communal meals on Sundays, and that she helps with the cooking…."I could bring corn. Pay for my dinner here 'n the lessons." He'll have to clear that with Maggie, but he can probably convince her his training in falconry is a good investment for the Hilltop.

"There's no need to pay _me_ for the lessons, but the Kingdom will welcome the corn. And if you ever get good at it and decide you want to take one of my birds back to the Hilltop, you _will_ have to pay me handsomely for that. In far more than corn."

Daryl nods and they part ways.

Beneath the twinkling sea of stars above, he finds his way back to Carol's trailer. He passes first "the barracks," which is what Carol has affectionately dubbed the trailer next to hers. Apparently, it houses two sets of bunk beds and four orphaned boys ages fourteen to seventeen, including Henry. "It's like a perpetual slumber party," Carol told him. "I supervise Henry…but from a respectable distance. He imagines he's a man."

It now occurs to Daryl that the second chair at her breakfast table is probably for when Henry comes over, and the thought gives him a sense of relief.

On the porch of "the barracks" Henry, his hair still wet, stands smoking a hand-rolled a cigarette with the young teen who got booted in the ass for peeping in the women's bathing tent. When Henry spies Daryl approaching, he quickly hands the cigarette back to the other boy and swats at the air with his hand in an attempt to hide the smoke. But when Daryl looks straight at him, Henry says, "Please don't tell Carol."

"Don't be a dumbass," Daryl replies. "Smokin's shit for yer health."

" _You_ smoke."

"Yeah. 'Cause I was a dumbass when I was yer age. Ain't no reason you got to be. Got a decent godmama next door, lookin' out for ya. Don't disrespect her."

"Yes, sir," Henry says nervously.

The other boy chuckles. "Yes, sir. Yes, sir," he mocks Henry. "Fine. More for me." He takes a drag on the cigarette, blows the smoke in Henry's face, and says, " _Pussy_."

Henry lunges for him and the cigarette falls to the porch and gets ground out beneath their boots as they tussle.

Daryl ignores the fray and walks on. Carol's not in the trailer when he gets in, but the door is unlocked. In the hazy darkness, he fumbles to light the oil lamp and sees the bushel of apples on the teacher's desk is lower than it was before. He hopes that asshole kid Henry's tussling with hasn't been pilfering Carol's apples.

They had a thief once at the Hilltop. Once caught, the man got a black eye from Daryl (with Maggie's official approval), and then he had to pay back twice what he stole out of his rations over the next two weeks.

Daryl drops his crumpled dirty clothes in the corner of the trailer, takes off is boots, and kicks them against the wall. Then he walks over to the far window to peer out at "the barracks," and sees Henry has the other boy pinned to the porch with his arm wrenched behind his back. Daryl opens the window slightly to listen, and when he hears the other boy screaming, "Uncle! Uncle!" he closes it again. Henry has successfully established his place in the pecking order, and that's all Daryl needs to know.

He walks over to the love seat and sets the oil lamp on the nightstand. Then he sits down and chews on his thumbnail. Usually he's more comfortable with Carol than with anyone else in the world, but he's feeling strangely nervous about spending the night in her bed, maybe because of all the dirty thoughts he's been having. It's not as if he's never thought about her in a sexual way before - he's done it more often than he cares to admit - but usually he suppresses those glimmers of desire quickly. He's trained himself not to feel those urges because they distract him from too many of the things that are necessary for survival. Besides, she was with Tobin and then – he _thought_ – with Ezekiel. Today, however, those sexual thoughts have been wildly pingponging in his head.

He drops his thumb from his mouth and looks at the books on the coffee table for something to distract himself. They're all _romance novels_. The _Denim Dreams Series_ , whatever the hell that is. It looks like she's up to #23. Romance? _Carol?_ But there's also a Raymond Chandler hardboiled detective story. Daryl picks that up, turns up the oil lamp a little, and starts reading.

He's a chapter in when the door creaks open. Carol walks in, dressed in sweatpants and a pink, v-neck t-shirt, her hair slightly damp, and holding a canvas bag. It doesn't help him that the v-neck reveals a hint of cleavage or that the outline of her nipples are visible against the soft fabric. "It's cold out there," she says. "Without a jacket. But it's much warmer in here. Roland did a great job insulting the place."

 _Fucking Roland_. Daryl thinks. _Handsome fucking horseman handyman._

She steps out of her boots, lines them up neatly against the teacher's desk, and sets the canvass bag on top of it.

"Looks like one of them kids next door stole some of yer apples," he says. "Probably the peepin' Tom."

"Cayden? No. He's a bit of a little jerk, and he gets in trouble from time to time, but he's not a thief. Ezekiel takes stealing _very_ seriously. Three strikes and you're banished from the Kingdom. I took the apples to Khalid for trade." She pulls a metal martini shaker out of the canvas bag. "So we could _both_ have an appletini instead of just me." She draws out two martini glasses next, etched with a picture of the Washington Monument, and several one-shot bottles. She also takes out a plastic bag with a chipped-off, misshapen block of ice in it. "From our icehouse." Carol unscrews the top of the martini shaker and tosses the ice inside.

"Thought ya'd been robbed."

"Well, can't you tell I'd already been back to the trailer, Sherlock?" She points to her towel, which now hangs drying over a kitchen chair, and a laundry basket, which contains her dirty clothes of the day.

"Oh."

"Enjoying the detective story?"

Daryl shrugs and tosses the book on the coffee table. "'S either that or a dang romance novel."

"Hey, the Denim Dreams series is more than romance. It's about the human condition."

Daryl snorts. "Yeah?" He holds up one of the books, which has a man in denim jeans and no shirt, his muscles rippling in the sun as he hoes the earth. "Who the hell farms without a shirt?"

Carol giggles. "Well, a girl gets lonely sometimes."

As Daryl returns the book to the coffee table, he can't help but wonder if she ever masturbates to these books, like he sometimes does to that old Victoria Secret catalog he keeps under a plank in the platform of his tent. Fortunately, her back is turned to him again as he flushes a lobster pink. She cracks open the seals on each of the mini bottles and pours them one by one into the shaker. "Unfortunately, I don't have any sour mix. They might taste a little strong."

Daryl has no desire to drink an _appletini_ , but she actually _traded_ to make his. He can't say no. "How much ya makin'?"

"This will make one and a half for each of us."

He's not sure he'll be able to choke that much down.

"It'll be a little heavy on the vodka."

Well, that part at least's not bad.

The shaker's lid lets out a metallic rasp as she screws it on, and she lifts the container and shakes. Seeing him watching her, she flips the shaker in the air, catches it, and shakes some more.

He smiles. "Ya used to tend bar?"

"Me? You think Ed would have let me do that? I brought him his beers, if that counts." She unscrews the top and pours into two glasses, sets down the shaker, and plucks the glasses up by the stems.

He accepts the offered appletini reluctantly. When she's settled beside him on the love seat, she raises her glass to his. "To our gold medal wins."

He clanks, sips, and winces.

"Did I do a terrible job?"

"Nah. 'S good." He sips again. "Just ain't much for schnapps." The mention of schnapps makes him think of Beth's quest for a drink and of the moonshiner's cabin they burned to the ground as if they were burning the slate clean and starting this world over.

But they weren't burning the slate clean, not back then - because the same shit just kept happening. Too much youth and innocence is gone now – Beth, Patrick, Lizzie, Mika, Noah, Carl….Carl was the worst, because Carl was with them from the quarry camp, and Carl was the future.

"You all right?" Carol asks him.

"Yeah. Fine. Just…thinkin' of people."

Carol bites down on her lip, and it twists up in a grimace. "It hits me like that too, sometimes."

"Sorry. Didn't mean to spoil the festival mood."

She leans back against the cushion, where he has one arm stretched out over the back of the couch, and settles her head against his shoulder. The white fabric of the t-shirt crinkles up, and his muscles constrict in surprise and then relax almost instantly in acceptance. His flesh warms and tingles.

"The festival's over," she says. "And you can always be yourself with me. You know that, right?"

He peers down at her, his martini glass in one hand. "That mean I can put my bare feet up on yer table?"

She laughs. "Go ahead. At least they're clean now."

He swings one leg up and pushes the stack of books to the side with his toes to make more room. Then he swings the other foot up. Carol puts her own bare feet up beside his and playfully taps his big toe with her own big toe.

Daryl's arm falls off the back of the love seat, until his fingers rest on her bare arm just below her t-shirt. He doesn't will himself to put his arm around her – it just happens, like the tide gently and naturally rolling to shore.

And it feels right, too.


	13. Chapter 13

"Wow!" Carol says, and bends forward to set her empty martini glass next to her bare feet on the coffee table. Daryl didn't want his second half glass, or the second half of his first glass for that matter, so she's actually had two and half glasses of these vodka-heavy appletinis. If it were anybody else but Daryl, she'd think he was trying to get her drunk. "I guess it's been a long time since I drank like that," she admits. "You might have to carry me to bed."

"Lightweight."

She lays her head back against his shoulder, where it's been a good part of the evening. They've been talking, on and off – well, mostly _she's_ been talking, filling him in on the going-ons of the Kingdom and asking questions about what's been happening at the Hilltop, which he's answered like he was rationing words. But he's seemed content. Relaxed. Not bored.

She closes her eyes and can see the outline of the pattern from the oil lamp beyond her eyelids. "After you put me to sleep," she tells him. "Don't sneak out in the middle of the night to Cassandra's bed."

" _Stahp_."

She giggles.

"Damn. Them drinks _did_ go to yer head."

"I know. I'm being silly." She opens her eyes and turns her head toward him. "You don't even _like_ sex."

"What?"

She pulls slightly away, her head now up. "You're not really that interested in sex."

"Hell's that mean? I ain't gay."

"I _know_." What _is_ she saying? Whatever's in her head, apparently. "It's just, you've never been with a woman since I've known you. Have you?"

"Ain't no one wants to fuck me."

"I'm sure there are _plenty_ of women who'd be happy to sleep with you, Daryl. Cassandra, for one."

"'S married," he says. "'N I think she gets 'round."

"That doesn't stop most men."

"Yeah, well, condoms ain't no good no more 'n Eugene ain't growin' that penicillin fast enough."

Carol chuckles. "Okay, so not Cassandra. Then that woman at the Hilltop."

"Who?"

"The one who was complimenting you on your hunting skills last time I was there. Sarah? Shannon?"

"Sharon don't wanna fuck me."

"Oh, I think she does," Carol says. "I think she very much does." She yawns and covers her mouth. When she drops her hand, she asks "So you _do_ like sex?"

"Who the hell doesn't like sex?"

"Tell me when you lost your virginity."

"Yer drunk. On just two 'n half martinis."

"Come on! It's just _us_. Tell me." Daryl gets a peeved look on his face, but when she smiles sloppily, it softens, and when she says, "Who? When? Where? Inquiring minds want to _know_ ," elongating the ooooo, he snorts. "Does that mean you're going to tell me?" she asks.

"Ain't interestin'."

" _I'm_ interested," she insists.

"Fine. M' high school girl. When we was sixteen. 'N the back seat of 'er '76 blue Ford Mustang."

Carol jerks her feet from the coffee table and sits straight up in surprise. In the process, she knocks over her empty martini glass, and it rolls left. "Your high school _girl_?"

"Mhmhm." He takes his feet off the table, reaches over, and rights her martini glass. "Ya a'ight?"

The terms _high school girl_ and _Daryl_ do not compute. "I thought you dropped out of high school your junior year?"

"Yeah. Kept goin' with 'er though."

The terms _going with_ and _Daryl_ do not compute.

"How long?"

"Two years. Well, three, countin' that year 'n high school."

"Three years!" The idea of Daryl ever having had a serious girlfriend – let alone a high school girl – let alone someone he dated for _three years_ – does _not_ compute.

It simply does not compute.

"What _happened_?" she asks.

"Hell ya mean, what happened? I tried to get in 'er pants, and she let me."

"No, I mean…why did you stop dating after three years?"

"Knocked her up."

Carol blinks.

Daryl's a _father_?

"So, what…" Carol struggles to process this new information. "You ran _off_?" Given the man he is now, she can't imagine him doing that, but an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old Daryl? Maybe.

"Didn't _run off_! Mean…not right away."

"What _do_ you mean?"

"Hell, asked her to marry me. Was gonna take care of 'er 'n the kid. Somehow. Already had two jobs. Was gonna get a third. But…" He grits his teeth together. "She killed it. Didn't even tell me 'til after. Her mama took her to the clinic. Said it'd just tie 'er down, and I wasn't the kind of guy to get _stuck_ with anyhow."

Carol's hand falls on his knee. "I'm so sorry. That must have been terrible for you."

Daryl's jaw grows rigid as he looks toward the far window of the trailer. "Couldn't look at 'er after that. Just…couldn't. She didn't even _tell_ me she was gonna do it. Didn't even…" He swallows. "Merle told me not to get all bent out of shape 'bout it, that I was better off without a kid, that Dixons need to be free to roam, that our daddy was a shit daddy 'cause he got stuck at eighteen with a knocked-up girl. We left town right after that. For some job Merle lined up for us. Never saw 'er again. Probably for the best. Would have been a shit father."

Carol shakes her head. "No. No, Daryl, you wouldn't have. You're _great_ with Judith. You have been from the start."

"Wouldn't of been at nineteen, though. Merle was right. I'd of gotten restless, stayed out late. I'd of lost my temper one too many times. Ended up like my own daddy."

"No." Carol shakes her head, but she doesn't know, not really. She has no idea what Daryl was like at nineteen. But she does know that even before he grew into the man he is now, even when she first met him…he never hurt anyone innocent, not even in a world where he would have had free reign to do so. "No. You wouldn't have."

"Don't matter anyhow," he murmurs. "Long time ago. 'Nother life. 'Nother _world_."

The conversation is sobering and Carol regrets pricking a bad memory. She can still feel the martinis, but her mind is clearer now. "I'm sorry I brought it up." At this point, she assumes Daryl will go silent until he leaves tomorrow.

But he doesn't. "'S a'ight," he says. "Ain't never told no one 'bout that. Feels kind of good, actually, get it off my chest. How 'bout you?"

"How about me what?"

"Who? When? Where?" He smirks. "Inquiring minds."

She wasn't expecting a return of the question, and maybe she looks a little stunned.

"Sorry. Bad memory? 'S Ed, wasn't it?"

"No. It wasn't Ed. But it was still a bad memory. Ed was unfortunately not an improvement in my taste in boyfriends."

"But Tobin was?" Daryl asks.

Carol looks down at her hand still on his knee. She thinks there's a gentle hurt in his voice when he asks that question. "Tobin was a decent man," she answers quietly. "I needed that, maybe. Needed to know that sex didn't _have_ to be uncomfortable, that it isn't something just to be gotten through, so that next time, when it's with someone who really matters, I can finally just…let myself…just…" She pauses. "I mean…I don't know what I mean."

"Yer drunk," he says.

"Am I?"

He holds up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Little bit."

"Did you love her?" Carols asks. "Your high school girl?"

"Dunno. Maybe. Mostly I just wanted to fuck."

"But not as much anymore?"

"Not just anyone anymore, maybe," he says and looks immediately away. "Better get ya to bed." He stands and plucks up the oil lamp in one hand and holds out his other hand to her.

She lets him help her up. She's not wobbly on her feet, so he lets go and she walks over to the bed. "Do you care which side?"

"Which side ya normally sleep on?" he asks.

"I normally spread myself out over the whole thing like a crucified Jesus," she admits. "But I think I can manage to share the space tonight."

"Then I want the side closest to the door. 'Cause yer gonna be too fuzzy-headed to stop whatever comes in."

She smiles. "I'm not that fuzzy headed. And nothing's coming in, but you're welcome to that side." She goes around to the other side and crawls under the covers while he sets the oil lamp on the night stand and then goes over to get his stuff from the corner of the room.

He returns and sets his hunting knife and loaded handgun on the nightstand, and then he leans his crossbow against the wood. He scratches his chest. "This shirt ya gave me…'S kind of itchy."

"Then take it off.

"Ya mind?"

"Why would I mind?"

Daryl yanks the shirt over his head and tosses it. Carol watches the muscles of his arms flex and feels a sudden tingle between her legs. The shirt flies across the trailer and lands on top of her empty martini glass. The glass wobbles, but doesn't fall over, and the shirt forms a white tent atop it. A thin jagged scar crawls across his left pectoral muscle. Carol's seen him without his shirt a time or two, but she's never noticed that. "Where'd that one come from?"

He follows her gaze and looks down at his own chest. "Ah. 'S just from thorns. In the woods. When I's chasing a deer. Got caught up."

"Did you get the deer?"

"Nah. Just got the scar." He climbs in next to her and turns down the lamp until the trailer is clothed in only faint and filtered starlight.

"Were there a lot of other women?" she asks in the mask of near darkness. "After your high school girl?"

"Nah." Daryl rests his hands on the blanket covering his bare stomach and looks up at the ceiling. "Merle'd throw me his scraps sometimes. The ones he wanted out the way so he could be with the ones he wanted to fuck. A night here. A night there. Never had a regular girl again, though."

"Never wanted one?"

"Used to seem easier that way."

"Used to?"

He doesn't answer.

"Daryl?"

"Mhmmm?"

"Did she see the scars on your back? Your high school girl?"

"Nah," he says. "We always did it in the backseat of 'er car. Left half our clothes on, 'case the cops came 'n told us to move on. Ain't no woman seen my scars. 'Cept you."

 _'Cept you…._

Those two words make her breath catch.

He's so quiet for so long that she's afraid she's made him uncomfortable. "Sorry I talked your ear off."

"'S still on."

Carol rolls to her side, puts a hand on his frim bicep, and kisses his earlobe. "Yep," she whispers. "It still is."

[*]

Daryl's been quiet because he's been thinking. Or, rather, the ghost of Merle's voice has been haunting his brain and chanting one refrain – _Dumbass_.

 _She kissed everyone on the cheek at that kissing booth, but she kissed you on the lips, **dumbass**._

 _She invited you to stay in her trailer for the whole night, **dumbass**._

 _Khalid assumed she was your woman, **dumbass**._

 _Why do you think that was, **dumbass**?_

 _She kissed your cheek when you got the gold, **dumbass**._

 _She invited you to share her bed, **dumbass**._

 _She asked you to take a bath, **dumbass**._

 _She gave you goddamn red silk boxers to wear into her bed, **dumbass**._

 _She made you a fucking cocktail, **dumbass**._

 _She put her head on your shoulder half the night, **dumbass**._

 _She asked if you like sex, **dumbass**._

 _She wanted you to carry her to bed, **dumbass**._

 _She told you take off your shirt, **dumbass**._

Carol's voice breaks through Merle's: "Sorry I talked your ear off."

"'S still on."

Her fingers touch the bare and sensitive flesh of his arm, and her soft, vodka-laced lips press against the tender lobe of his ear.

 _She just kissed your ear, **dumbass**._

 ** _She wants you, dumbass._**

That last line isn't in Merle's voice, though, it's in his _own_ , and when Carol begins to draw away from his ear, it's _that_ voice that makes him turn and press his mouth hungrily to hers.

Maybe apple schnapps isn't so bad after all, because Carol tastes _fucking fantastic_.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: _I'm headed on family vacation in the morning, so I won't update for a few days. So I thought I better at least leave you with a temporary plateau for the time being, thus the double-update today._ **

[*]

Carol has sometimes imagined Daryl initiating a kiss. And when she has, she's always imagined it to be a shy act – a gentle pressing of his lips against hers – for a brief moment – followed by a timid head duck – and then maybe a gentle return, a second overture, a quiet tasting of her mouth until she opens it for him and he ever so gradually ventures inside.

That's not what's happening right now.

That's not _at all_ what's happening right now.

His fingers dig into the strands of her hair at the back of her head as he pushes her more deeply into the kiss. His tongue ravishes her mouth until she's gasping, and he lets her up for air before returning to her mouth again. His teeth rasp over her lower lip, almost drawing blood, and then he licks over the tender spot before plunging his tongue back into her mouth.

Daryl breaks free again, and she moans at the loss of his lips. But then he tugs at her hair, which pulls her head back to expose her neck. His agonizing assault continues there, from her cheek to the dip in her neck and back, with kisses and licks and eager nips, until she's squirming and whimpering, and her nipples have hardened and peaked against the inside of her shirt.

[*]

Daryl works his way up the rest of Carol's neck, over her jawline, and captures her mouth again. They're just kissing, but he's got a hardon that could hammer a nail. Fuck, he could build an entire platform tent with this thing.

Carol squirms against him and thrusts herself against his erection like she's on fire. Her pert, hardened nipples press against the thin fabric of her v-neck.

"Ya want me." He says those words with surprise, but they aren't a question either.

 _"Yes_."

"Ya want this." He slips a hand beneath her shirt to cup a breast. She whimpers when he slides his calloused thumb over her harden nipple. "Don't ya?"

Her answer is more of a strangled moan than a yes, but he accepts it. "Yeah. Ya do, Carol. Oh hell yes you do…"

[*]

Daryl's hand has vanished from her breasts. He's no longer teasing her nipples with his rough thumb. He's pulling away.

What's he doing?

Where's he going?

 _No. No. No. No. No._

He can't be stopping _now_.

"Daryl…" she pleads desperately.

In the darkness, there's a _hiss_. A sharp _flick_ follows, and a _woosh_ , and then a flame consumes the tip of a match Daryl holds. The bright fire almost licks his fingertips, and he drops the match straight into the glass surrounding the oil lamp on the night stand.

The wick catches with a roar. The blue and yellow fire flares up and blackens the glass before Daryl turns the lamp down, but now the bed is bathed in an orange glow.

He rolls back to her. "Wanna see ya." With one hand, he throws the blanket off them both, like a matador flicking a cape, and it slides off the bed and pools on the trailer floor on her side.

The sudden chill of the air lightly cools the burning heat that has begun to spread throughout her body.

He tugs at the hem of her t-shirt.

Carol sits up, crosses her arms, and then hesitates.

"Wanna see ya," he repeats.

She lifts the shirt over her head in one fluid motion. Carol's always imagined she'd be embarrassed if Daryl ever saw her breasts, that they would seem too small, too worn, too unexciting. But she can't possibly feel inadequate when he's looking at her like that, his blue eyes turned an almost steel gray with desire, or when his voice rises to her ears like smoke: "Beautiful." He cups one breast fully in his hand and squeezes gently. "So fuckin' beautiful, Carol."

"You want me," she says, with the same half-surprise that was in his voice earlier.

"Goddamn right I do." He bends his head and flicks her nipple with his tongue, which makes her gasp. But then he sucks it – the way she's seen him suck his own fingers a dozen times – and her gasp turns into a low moan. When he moves his head and suckles the other nipple in the same way, she thrusts up against his abdomen.

He rips his mouth from her breast. "Ya want me."

" _Yes_."

Daryl drags her sweatpants down to reveal her black panties. Carol kicks the pants off of her ankles as she tugs frantically at the drawstring of his sweatpants. The string unravels, and she slips her hand inside his sweats to run it over the length of his hardened shaft through the silky boxers. A guttural groan erupts from somewhere deep in his throat.

"You want me," she says.

"Hell yeah." He throws himself onto his back and shimmies out of his sweat pants.

Carol straddles him and rubs against his erection through the silky fabric of his boxers as she bends to taste his smoky sweet tongue.

[*]

Carol wants him. She definitely _wants_ him. It's the only explanation for the fact that those hot, lacy, black panties she's wearing are soaked through the crotch. As she rocks desperately against him, Daryl sits up, seizes her by the hips, and rolls her onto her back. He nips her neck, and then pulls back. "Ya want this," he tells her as he thrusts his hardon between her legs, pushing the silk of her panties inward. "Don't ya?"

"Yes," she whimpers.

He hooks a finger into the waistband of her panties and slides them down to her ankles. Squirming and biting her bottom lip, she kicks them off. He doesn't think he's ever seen anything so sexy in his life as the way she's biting her own lip.

Daryl hovers over her, takes her hand, and slides it into the waistband of his boxers to press it against himself. "Ya want _this_." When she responds by wrapping her soft hand around his throbbing erection, and raking her teeth over his earlobe, he almost loses it.

"Aw fuck, Carol." He covers her hand and pushes it away, and then roughly slides his boxers down.

She spreads her legs for him. She opens to him, and he can't resist the invitation even for a second. He pushes into her with a low groan. But when she gasp in surprise, he stills. He holds his breath for a moment, not moving, until she moves. She rocks, and he rocks with her.

[*]

Daryl's voice is its own sex organ.

Carol's head goes light as those husky tones penetrate her ear: "Mhmmmm, yeah, you do want this, don't ya, Carol?" He thrusts harder, and she wraps her legs around his waist to accommodate his urgency. "Ya like that, don't ya?" The headboard slams against the trailer wall beneath the window, and she cries out his name.

He slows his pace. His thrusts grow slower and slower as his breath falls in hot clouds against her neck and ear… "Sweet, sexy Carol…ya like this?"

She whimpers in reply, but his thrusting slows still further and then he stills.

Carol jerks her hips. "Daryl…don't stop…please…"

"Say it."

"Daryl…."

"Say it."

She jerks her hips harder to try to get him to move again. "Please, Daryl…."

"Say ya want it."

"I want it. Please, please, please…I want _you_."

When Daryl begins to thrust again, it only takes three hard strokes before she's shuddering all around him, arching, and ripping her nails down his back over his old scars.

He keeps thrusting through her orgasm and she thinks maybe it sets off a second one, because there's a roller coaster of pleasure barreling through her body now. She reaches the peak and has just finished rocketing down the hill when Daryl's forehead thuds into the mattress above her shoulder and he bends his neck, driving his head down hard and balling the sheets into his fists with a strangled groan as he spills into her.

Daryl stills suddenly and completely. He goes totally silent, and then collapses, his body pressing heavily against hers.

And then he begins to shiver.

[*]

"Are you all right?" Carol asks as the shivers continue to run through Daryl's arms and chest and legs. It's like he's just crawled onto shore out of an icy pond.

"'M fine." He slides off of her and rolls onto his back. "'M _great_."

"You're shivering."

"'Cause it feels good." He turns his head, swallows, and takes in a deep breath. "Ya feel good?"

"I'm fine," she echoes him with a teasing smile. "I'm _great_."

He smiles back. "Damn," he says.

"Damn," she agrees.

Carol leans over her side of the bed and recovers the blanket. She spreads it out over them and settles her head on his shoulder, with one of her legs wedged between the two of his and an arm across his abdomen. He lays his arm across her back.

Eventually, his shivering stops.

Soon, Daryl's chest is rising and falling in an even pattern. Carol raises her head and finds him asleep.

She stretches over him, turns down the lamp on the nightstand, and then curls up against his side again. Warmth radiates from his satisfied flesh.

A cricket perched on the outside windowsill saws its wings in a mating call. Carol's eyelids droop. With the lullaby of love playing outside her window, she sails into sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

Daryl sleeps like the dead.

Well, like the dead _used_ to sleep.

When he awakes, sunlight is filtering through the lace curtains on the window opposite the bed, and Carol is lying on her side next to him, her elbow on the mattress, her head propped up on her hand, just…watching him.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," he replies.

They fucked last night.

He's 98% sure that wasn't a dream.

Now, though, he's worried she might regret it, that she might say it was all because of the martinis, that she won't still want him in the sober light of morning. "Ya wanted that, didn't ya?" he manages to ask. "Last night?"

"Seems obvious, doesn't it?" she replies.

"Not 'cause ya were drunk?"

"I admit I may have been buzzed. But I was fully in control of my choices." She smiles. "It was fun."

"Yeah." He can almost feel the smile taking over his face.

Both of their eyes duck to the mattress and then rise and meet again.

She giggles like a schoolgirl who's just kissed a boy for the first time.

He…he doesn't _giggle_. Daryl Dixon most definitely does _not_ giggle, but he laughs in an uninhibited, happy way he's not used to laughing.

And that makes her laugh the same way.

Daryl leans in and stops her laugh with a kiss, and they're both smiling when he pulls away.

"How long have you wanted to do this?" she asks.

He thinks about it for a moment. The truth is, he's not sure. His desire for her snuck up on him slowly, and most of the time, he's been successful at suppressing it. _Most_ of the time. "Dunno."

"No idea?"

"Dunno. Maybe...Maybe since the prison," he admits. "Since that time when ya brought me dinner on watch, 'n ya asked if I wanted to fool around. Made me start thinkin' bout it."

"But you _snorted!_ " she exclaims. "You _snorted_ and told me to _stop."_

"Thought ya was _joking!_ Ya mean ya weren't?"

She shrugs. "I was. I was ninety percent joking, probably. But…then I started thinking about it, too."

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah. A lot of nights. A lot of lonely nights in that cell with you not all that far away….you probably could have come right in. I wouldn't have kicked you out of my bed."

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck."

She snorts and covers her mouth with her hand.

"We could have been fuckin' since the _prison_?" he asks.

She lowers her hand again. "Maybe."

"Damn," he mutters. "Why'd we waste so much time?"

"I don't know. Then again, maybe it was for the best. I'm not sure how ready I would have been back then. I was still testing my wings."

"But yer ready now?"

She nods.

His tongue snakes out between his lips in a happy, semi-lecherous smile. "We're gonna keep doin' it, right?"

"You want to?" she asks.

"Hell yeah I want to! You?"

"Kind of hard to do when there's fifteen miles between us. I mean, it's big…." Her eyes flit down to where the blanket now covers him. "But it's not nearly _that_ long."

"Stahp."

She smiles and looks up again.

"'M gonna be here every Sunday for lessons," he tells her.

"Well, I could probably teach you a thing or two, but I'm no Mrs. Robinson."

He rolls his eyes. "Mean _falconry_ lessons. Already cleared it with the falcon man."

"Robert?"

"Yeah. Robert. Sunday afternoons. Could stay for dinner. Stay the night. Leave in the mornin' for the Hilltop. Maggie ain't gonna like it, but…" He shrugs. "Got to take a day off huntin' sometimes. Used to take off Friday. Just make it Sunday."

"Falconry and sex, huh?" She rests her hand on the blanket above his hip. "Kill two birds with one stone?"

"Ya ain't exactly a chore."

She settles her head down on the pillow. He puts and arm around her, and draws her closer. "Sound good?" he asks.

"I don't really like the idea of being a booty call."

"Ain't a booty call if it's scheduled a week ahead of time."

She laughs.

"Ain't a booty call if ya got to ride a horse fifteen miles to get it."

"You're finally going to learn to ride a horse? For me?"

"Know how to ride a damn horse. Rode one when I was…" His mouth closes into a firm line.

"When you were looking for Sophia," she says. "It's okay. You can say it. But that horse also threw you down a hill, and you came back in pretty bad shape."

"Could just ride my bike."

"I didn't think it worked anymore," she says, "with the gas all turned."

"Meant a bicycle. Got me a good dirt bike. Ya know….might come here Flinstone style."

She smirks. "For your prehistoric booty call?"

"Ain't a booty call if yer the only one."

"Am I?" she asks. "Going to be the only one?"

Who else would there be? She sounds almost jealous, and that swells his ego more than he'd like to admit. "Well, mean…you can always invite Cassandra over if ya really want a threesome."

Carol narrows her eyes.

He laughs. "'M _jokin'_."

She slaps him playfully on his bare chest. "Don't joke about that." She slaps him again and he seizes her wrist and rolls her underneath himself.

"Only you," he growls between kisses. "Only you, Carol." He begins to kiss his way down her neck and between her breasts, murmuring, "Yer all the woman I can handle."

[*]

Carol falls asleep after their playful morning sex, so Daryl dresses in his clothes from the day before and heads out to the outhouses. He's washing his hands at the handpump when that teenage girl who did pretty well in the archery tournament – Elizabeth, Daryl thinks - nears, with that peeping teenage boy - Cayden - on her heels.

"I told you to fuck off," she says. "Didn't you already get an eyeful last night?"

Daryl shakes his hands dry and stands, watching Cayden cautiously.

"Aw, come on, Lizzie. Just accept the inevitable."

"It's Elizabeth, _not_ Lizzie. And there _is_ no inevitable."

"Who else are you ever going to get with?" Cayden asks. "Liam's probably going to marry Enid. Matt's going with Emily. And Jake's a fairy."

"There are guys at the Hilltop. Even a couple at Oceanside. And there's Henry."

"Henry? Henry's a _baby_!"

"I don't think a _baby_ wins the silver in quarterstaff. What medals did you win? What did you even _compete_ in?"

"Aw, come on…"

When Cayden slips an arm around Elizabeth's waist to draw her back, Daryl's muscles tense in preparation for an ass kicking, but the girl takes care of herself by reaching out and digging her fingers into a pressure point in Cayden's neck until he starts to crumple. "I said fuck off, asshole."

As she struts off, Cayden stands up and rubs his neck. "You're going to regret missing out on me!" Cayden yells after her. When he sees Daryl watching him, he ducks his head and scurries off.

When Daryl returns to the trailers, he finds Khalid on the front porch of the one opposite Carol's, smoking. "Want one?" the swordsman calls to Daryl as he fishes another cigarette from his front pocket.

"Didn't know ya had any. Ya was tryin' to win mine."

"I just like to gamble."

Daryl takes him up on the offer and comes and stands beside him at the railing of his classroom trailer. He leans in for the light Khalid holds. "Cool lighter. Ya still got butane?"

"I do," Khalid replies. "Why? You want to trade for some?"

"Maybe. 'S that symbol?" There's some kind of weird M with a globe-like head on Khalid's lighter.

"Mensa."

"What?"

"It's a high-IQ society. Was. I used to be a member."

Khalid doesn't exactly match Daryl's stereotype of an egghead. "That so?"

"Back when that sort of thing mattered." Khalid takes a drag from his cigarette and blows out the smoke. "Now only practical skills matter."

"Can't be a dumbass and learn practical skills," Daryl says a defensively. "Ain't like every plumber's a moron."

"I hope not. I was one. Before all this. I still am, I suppose, but I dig outhouses and lay pipe for wells now, instead of fixing toilets and kitchen sinks."

"Why weren't ya a lawyer or something?"

"My brother was a lawyer. By the time he got through seven years of school, with $200,000 in debt…I already had my own plumbing business and was routinely making over $100 an hour. Of course my ex took half of everything I earned in the divorce. Were you married? In the old world?"

"Nah."

"That's the great thing about the apocalypse. If they leave you, they can't take shit."

"'Cept yer heart," Daryl mutters.

Khalid laughs. "A romantic! Who would have guessed it?" He inhales and then blows out.

Daryl takes a drag and whistles smoke out over the rail.

"Have you and Rosita….I mean…" Khalid glances over his shoulder at the door to his trailer. "In the past? Have you two ever…?"

"Ever what?" Daryl uses his thumbnail to slide a fleck of tobacco off his tongue.

"Screwed."

"Nah. No. _Hell no_!"

"Well, don't be so _adamant_. She's excellent in bed."

Daryl peers at him warily and takes another puff.

"I'm not bragging. Just making an observation."

"Mhmhm."

Khalid gestures behind himself toward his trailer with his cigarette. "If I _were_ bragging, I'd note how she's still sleeping it off."

Daryl smokes in silence and considers how quickly he can get this thing down to the butt so he can stop listening to Khalid crow about his conquest.

But Khalid isn't crowing anymore. He's examining his cigarette thoughtfully. "Does she have someone? Rosita? Back at the Hilltop?"

"Dunno. Don't think so." He does know. Rosita tells him every damn thing on watch. She _was_ with Eudardo. But that was awhile ago. Until last night with Khalid, she hadn't gotten laid in four months, three weeks, and five days. He knows because she said it about twenty times on watch the night before last. Four months, three weeks, and five days. But he's no gossip. "Guess it don't make no difference to you, though, huh?" Khalid didn't seem to mind sleeping with Cassandra when she was supposed to be with Roland.

"It does when I don't _know_ about it," Khalid says. "And mostly I'm wondering if she might see me again, if I came _there_. If she has man at the Hilltop…I'm guessing she won't. Not on home turf anyway."

"Well. maybe consider askin' 'er."

Khalid shrugs. "I tried. She avoided the question. Which is why I wondered if there's another man."

"Dunno. Don't think so."

Carol's trailer door opens and she comes out, looking anxious, but when she sees Daryl, she appears relieved, smiles, and waves. He raises his cigarette between two fingers, in a kind of salute.

"I'm headed to the outhouses," she calls to him. "Then I'll make us some breakfast."

Daryl nods.

" _She's_ making _you_ breakfast?" Khalid asks. "Well, _damn_ , man. Whatever sweet thing you've got going there, don't fuck it up."

Daryl watches Carol disappear across the blacktop and thinks he probably will. He doesn't know the first thing about women. He hasn't had a regular girlfriend since he was nineteen. He probably _will_ fuck it up.

[*]

Breakfast turns out to be fresh apple slices, goat cheese brought from the Hilltop to share with the Kingdom, and hot tea. Daryl sits opposite Carol at her two-person breakfast table, which he now knows for sure she shares with Henry, because the boy stopped by to tell her he wanted to eat breakfast with the Oceanside girls today.

"He's probably going to chase Rachel all morning," Carol says with a sigh. "And that girl just treats him like crap."

"Goat cheese tastes funny," Daryl says, and then wishes he hadn't. She probably wanted him to have a conversation about Henry and Rachel or something. He could have told her about Elizabeth saying Henry wasn't a baby. He could say -

"- I like it."

What were they talking about? "What?"

"Goat cheese," she says.

"Oh yeah." He tries to think how to keep _that_ topic going. "Ya have it much in the old world?"

" _Me?"_ Carol asks. "No, we couldn't afford any fancy cheeses."

"Sometimes when my Mama was bein' real fancy, she got us Velveeta." That sounded stupid, he thinks. That makes him sound classless.

 _You **are** classless, dumbass_, his inner voice tells him. _And Carol damn well knows it. And she fucked you anyhow. Twice. Relax, moron. It's just Carol. You've had breakfast with her a hundred times._

"Did your mom ever make you cheese and ketchup sandwiches?" Carol asks. "With the Kraft singles and Wonderbread?"

"Nah. Made 'em _myself_."

Carol smiles. There's something about that amused, affectionate smile of hers that twists his heart up in strange ways. "Quite the chef."

"Stahp."

"Did you like them?"

"Sure," he answered. "Liked any kind of food. Used store brand singles, though. Store brand bread, too. Used to have food in the house more often 'fore Merle left, 'n my mamma died, 'n my daddy started tradin' all the food stamps for booze. Dumb ass only got one-third value for 'em. Said we didn't need food stamps no more with just two mouths to feed." _Now you're talking about yourself too much, dumbass. Ask her about herself_. "You...uh...ya ate those?"

"Sure."

"Thought only poor people ate those."

"My folks weren't exactly Rockefellers," she tells him.

"Ya ever eat onion sandwiches?"

"Onion sandwiches?" she echoes.

"Bread, Miracle Whip, 'n onions."

"I wasn't quite _that_ poor," she clarifies. "But I grew up in a small town. My mom stayed home. My dad had two jobs - as a brick layer in the morning and a bartender at night."

"He a'ight, yer daddy?"

She shrugs. "I never saw him much. Like I said. He worked two jobs. When he was home, which was usually in the late afternoon and evening between jobs, he was mostly sleeping. I only saw him at dinner, and on Sundays, when we'd all go to church together. But he paid the bills."

"What he think of Ed?" _Dumbass question, dumbass. Why'd you go and reminder her of Ed?_

"He died before I met Ed. Heart attack. How do you like the tea?"

Daryl sets down his mug. "Ain't coffee, but...Ya done a real good job."

"Nabila makes the tea."

"Oh. In that case, don't much like it."

She laughs. "I didn't know you told white lies." Then her face grows suddenly grim. "I guess I did. You lied about what happened to Glenn and Abraham and - "

"- Carol - "

"- I know _why_ you did. You were trying to protect me from the pain. I'd run away. I was hiding from all that...and you were going to let me hide. Because you thought it would make me happy."

Daryl ducks his head to the table and toys with one of his apple slices. "Always hated seein' ya sad. Ever since the farm."

The door to the trailer rattles as fist pounds on the outside. "Hey, Casanova!" Rosita shouts. "Wagon train's pulling out in five minutes!"

[*]

Daryl lifts Glenn, Jr., Gracie, and then Judith into the carriage before climbing up beside Rosita on the two-person driver's bench to take the shotgun position. Enid is talking out the open side to Liam. Liam kisses her, says, "Soon. I promise," and steps aside.

Rosita cracks the reins and the horses drag the carriage through the open gate of the Kingdom, with the rickshaw and then the horse-drawn cart following.

"See you Sunday!" Carol calls after Daryl as they pull off, and he waves in reply.

"Sunday?" Rosita asks him.

The driver seat shakes and bounces, and Daryl steadies his crossbow on his shoulder. "Comin' for falconry lessons once a week."

"Mhmhm," Rosita says. "I bet you're _coming_ once a week."

"Can I come?" Judith asks from the carriage. "For another sleepover with Olivia?"

"Don't think so, sweetheart," Daryl tells her. Judith crosses her arms over her chest, frowns, and slumps down in the seat. "Not _this_ Sunday," Daryl hastens. "But maybe 'nother time. Hell, we'll plan somethin' sometime." He glances at Rosita. "Maybe if you come to see Khalid one of these Sundays, ya can drive the carriage." Daryl doesn't know how to drive a carriage, or, at least, he hasn't spent any time doing it. He's always shotgun. "Take me 'n Little Ass Kicker both?"

"Who says I'm coming back to see Khalid?"

"Not impressed?" Daryl asks.

"It was good," Rosita answers. "But just because you fuck someone… " - Enid covers mini-Glenn's ears in the backseat - "doesn't mean you have a relationship. _Especially_ after a festival like this. _Everyone's_ hooking up. It doesn't _mean_ anything."

Daryl shifts uncomfortably on the driver's bench. "Could," he says. "Could mean somethin'."

Rosita tugs on the reins to turn the horses onto a side road. Behind them, the Kingdom slowly disappears.


	16. Chapter 16

Daryl is daydreaming again. About Sunday. About Carol. About the feel of her breasts in his hands. About the way she bites her bottom lip and whimpers. About some things he'd like to do _with_ her, and _to_ her, and what – if he can summon the courage – he'd like to ask her to do to him.

So he doesn't notice the deer munching on the bait of acorns he's left until it finishes up, begins to walk away, and snaps a twig.

He scurries to raise the bow he's let droop, but it's becomes tangled in the branches of the ghillie suit he's made for camouflage. The deer takes off.

"Shit!" he cries as he wrenches his bow free.

"Shit!" He lets fly an arrow that lodges itself in a tree just above the fleeing deer's hide.

"Shit!" He runs after the buck, shoots again, and hits yet another tree before the fleeing creature vanishes into the woods. " _Shit_!"

[*]

"Three squirrels?" Maggie asks after she mounts the porch stairs. "Sharon said you gave her three squirrels to skin and butcher. Really? That's it?"

Daryl stands from the deacon's bench where he's been wiping down his arrows and tucks his rag into the back pocket of his Wranglers. "Andy 'n Lisa got two grouse." Andy and Lisa are the young married couple he's been training to hunt better.

"Three squirrels and two grouse. It's not exactly a feast," Maggie says, "with this many people."

"Sorry. Get a deer tomorrow."

"You better, especially if you're planning to be gone all day Sunday and Monday morning." She sighs. "Look, I'm happy you and Carol finally got together - "

"- Didn't say that!" He doesn't want Carol to think he's been boasting.

"Everyone knows. And I'm happy for you. But the jerky reserves are running thin and the bunnies in the rabbit farm aren't big enough yet to eat. This community _relies_ on you for meat. We don't want to have to slaughter a chicken that can give us eggs or one of the two cows that give us milk. I'm not ungrateful, but this is your _main_ _job_. And let's face it. You got nothing Monday afternoon when you came back from the Kingdom, and you got almost nothing today. What's up?"

"Just distracted is all."

"Well, get your head out of your ass."

"Ya got a shitty bedside manner, ya know that?"

"It's Siddiq's job to have a nice bedside manner. It's _my_ job to keep this community running. And in case you haven't noticed, it now has twice as many people as it did two years ago." Maggie thunders down the porch stairs, a hand on the butt of her pistol, and heads toward the fields, probably to lecture the farmers on not picking fast enough.

Daryl's pissed, but…really…more at himself than at Maggie. She's right. These people depend on him. Too much. It feels good to be important, but meat should _not_ be in the hands of one man. Andy and Lisa are coming along, but they're nowhere near ready to replace him.

The screen door creaks open and Enid steps out onto the porch with mini-Glenn on her hip.

Daryl asks, "Liam hunt much?"

"Yeah. He bow hunts with the huntsmen."

"He any good?"

"Pretty good," she says. "I mean, you saw him in the tournament."

"Tournament targets don't move."

Enid sets down Glenn, and the little boy toddles to the stairs, gets down on his knees, turns around, and crawls down them backwards before toddling off to try to join the big boys playing kickball.

"He says he gets at least a third of the pheasant they eat," Enid explains. "He's good at bird hunting, mostly."

"Hmmm…." Daryl murmurs. "How y'all doin'? You and Liam? It gettin' real serious?"

Enid laughs. "Why are you suddenly asking about my love life? You never gave a crap about it before."

One of the bigger boys returns Glenn, Jr. to the stairs and sets him down on his bottom. "Stay," the older boy says. "Watch."

"Gwen pways!" Glenn, Jr. insists and stands and toddles back to the group.

Enid sighs and goes down the stairs after him.

[*]

On Wednesday Daryl pushes down every thought of Carol. It's not easy to be zen anymore, but he manages it, at least long enough to bag a medium-sized doe.

"Good to see you back in action," Maggie tells him.

"Want ya to do somethin' for me."

"What's that?"

"Teach me to ride a horse better."

"I thought you were taking your dirt bike to the Kingdom?"

"Can't go that fast on that bike. I ain't like Aaron." That man can pedal the rickshaw twelve miles an hour while pulling two people.

"Look, I'm happy to teach you to ride better, but if you're going to the Kingdom every week, I don't want you taking a horse. We only have four."

"Got five," Daryl insists.

"Nelly's out of commission until that leg heals."

"Hell else are they for if not to move us 'round?"

"For pulling plows. For supply runs. For trade runs. And for evacuating if, God forbid, we ever need to. Jesus and Eduardo are taking the two-horse cart to Oceanside this weekend for the monthly trade. So you're not leaving us with only one functioning horse."

Daryl sighs. "Yer a pain in my ass, ya know that?"

"So are we going riding or not?"

Daryl follows her to the stables.

[*]

After the Thursday morning bird hunt with Andy and Lisa – which results in eight quail, three grouse, and four pheasants – enough to yield nine pounds of meat - Daryl meets Maggie at the stables for a second riding lesson. It goes a little better this time, mostly because he manages to keep his mouth shut when he thinks she's being too pedantic.

Then he spends a little time tinkering with his dirt bike in front of his platform tent, since Maggie won't let him sign out a horse this weekend. Aaron stops by and sits on the platform, between the wide-open canvas flaps. "Did you see what I did with my recumbent bike?"

"Nah." Daryl snaps the freshly lubed chain back on – the bike is upside down on its seat – and spins the pedals to make sure it's moving well. It's not like tinkering with a motorcycle, but it's _something_.

"I painted the shell on it. I look like Speed Racer now. You know, from the cartoons?"

Daryl snorts.

"On a clear highway, I can get up to twenty-five miles an hour with it."

"No fuckin' way!"

"Yes, fucking way," Aaron insists. "The problem is…there's never more than a mile of clear highway anymore…I'm constantly stopping to clear debris, or steer around it."

Daryl huffs in agreement. That's why he opted for the dirt bike, after all.

"Hi, Aaron," says Katrina as she walks past Daryl's tent. The blonde, busty woman moved in from the Sanctuary after it collapsed during the War with the Whisperers and her husband was killed. She reaches out and trails her fingertips over Aaron's shoulders as she passes by.

Aaron shakes his head when she's gone. "She thinks she's going to turn me."

Daryl flips his bike back onto its tires and says nothing.

"Sometimes I think I should just…" Aaron shrugs. "Settle down with a woman. Perpetuate the race. Close my eyes and think of England."

"Don't sound like much fun." Daryl thrusts his boot heel against the kickstand and leans the bike on it. "Carol thinks ya should get with Jesus."

"How unlike you, to take an interest in my love life."

Daryl grunts. He's not interested. But Carol's on his mind, and that's what Carol said.

"Jesus isn't my type, and, besides, he has a man at Oceanside. That one they found and took in six months ago, the man with the two daughters."

"He's gay 'n he's got kids?"

"It happens. I'm guessing he did his husbandly duty a few times a year. Or maybe he's bisexual."

Daryl narrows his eyes. "Jesus ain't movin' to Oceanside, is he?"

"Eventually….maybe. I wouldn't be surprised."

"Maggie know 'bout this?"

"It's why she didn't back him for the Council last election. She doesn't think he'll stick around. But the fact that she didn't back him…well," Aaron says gloomily, " _that_ gives him even less reason to stick around."

"Got you on the Council, though," Daryl says.

"What's it like?" Aaron asks.

"'S what like?"

"Sex. With a woman."

"Well, hell, ya ain't never even _tried_ it?"

Aaron shakes his head.

"How the hell ya know ya don't like it then?"

"How do you know you wouldn't like having sex with a man?"

Daryl's face scrunches up in disgust and Aaron laughs. He stands and pats Daryl on the shoulder. "I came to tell you it's dinner time."

[*]

After dinner, Daryl scales the fence and takes his place on the watch platform. After a half hour, Rosita walks from the far end of the platform along the fence line over to where he is and demands, "Entertain me."

"How the hell 'm I supposed to entertain you?"

"Tell me a joke," Rosita insists. "Or a riddle. Or – " She stops suddenly and lifts her binoculars. She turns the focus knob, looks in the distance, and then drops them over her chest. "We've got company coming over the hill."

Daryl swings his bow quickly off his shoulder.

"Relax. They're friends. They're flying the Kingdom's flag."

Daryl feels a sudden jolt of excitement. "Who?" It's not time for the monthly trading trip.

"Couldn't quite tell." She raises her binoculars again and surveys the scene. "Looks like Roland and Liam, pulling a cart with goods for trade. And also….oh shit."

"What?"

"Khalid's with them. On the back of the cart."

"So?" Daryl asks.

"It's late. He's going to expect to stay the night. I don't want him to think we're a _thing_."

"Carol with 'em?" She's on the Kingdom's trade team, but he wasn't expecting her. This isn't a scheduled monthly trade visit. But maybe they're coming two weeks early because she couldn't wait until Sunday to see him.

"No."

Disappointment weaves itself around his heart.

 _Dumbass_ , he tells himself. _Ain't like she's thinkin' 'bout you the way yer thinkin' 'bout her. All damn day._

When the cart pulls to a stop before the gate, Khalid hops off the back, walks around the front of the horses, and looks up.

"Shit," Rosita mutters. "He brought fucking _flowers_."

[*]

Daryl takes his seat on the right side of the large oak dining room table, while Maggie settles at its head. Father Gabriel blindly feels for the chair next to Daryl, which Daryl pushes out for the man. Candlelight flickers from the old-fashioned chandelier above as Roland sits down opposite Daryl and next to Maggie. Rosita, Aaron, and Liam fill in four more seats.

Khalid pauses before Daryl and hands over an envelope. "Carol asked me to deliver this to you."

Daryl grabs the letter and hastily shoves it into the inside pocket of his leather jacket as Khalid takes a seat.

"It's good to see you again, Maggie," Roland says. "It's been too long."

Maggie shakes her head. "Don't say that. Peace can never last too long."

"I think you gather my meaning. We should see each other for occasions other than war."

Liam reaches into the front pocket of his suede coat and pulls out a paper. "Here's the inventory of what we brought. We're asking for four bushels of corn, six pounds of butter, and two gallons of cream in return."

Maggie looks the paper over and then reads it aloud so Father Gabriel can hear. "All in favor?" she asks.

All five members of the current Hilltop Council raise their hands.

"Well that was easy," Rosita says.

"It always is with the Kingdom," Father Gabriel agrees.

"Oceanside…" Maggie mutters "Not so much."

"Maybe if you hadn't pushed Jesus off the Council," Aaron tells her, "We'd get sweeter deals with Oceanside."

"I didn't _push_ him off the Council. The Council turned over. Siddiq got replaced in the elections, too."

Roland redirects the conversation: "I'm sorry you couldn't make it to the festival, Maggie. Rosita says you would have beat me in the rings competition."

"I don't know about that."

"Well, I'd love to watch you try. Next year, perhaps. You missed quite the celebration."

"I had too many duties here."

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," he replies. "Which is why maybe sometimes you need to take the crown _off_ and have some _fun_."

"Dad?" Liam interrupts, and gestures pointedly with his head toward Maggie.

"My son is eager for me to address another issue. We haven't just come to trade."

"No?" Maggie asks. "I wondered why you were off schedule. And why the usual trade team wasn't here."

"At the harvest festival," Roland tells Maggie, "my son proposed marriage to Enid, and she said yes. I hope we can all agree it's a good union, and move onto the more mundane details."

"Like where they'll live?" Maggie asks.

"Enid doesn't want to leave the Hilltop," Liam tells her. "So I'm willing to come here. I can bring with me all of my personal weapons and the skill to hunt, slay walkers, and fight. I can ride well, too. I can be on your trade team or your scavenging team if you need me on either."

"And what else?" Maggie asks.

"Isn't that enough?" Roland asks.

"Every bedroom in the mansion is full," she replies, "all of the trailers, the RVs, _and_ we just built _another_ platform tent. Our resources are strained as is."

"But Enid has her own room," Liam says. "I'd just live with her, of course."

"Judith shares her room," Maggie reminds him.

"We can probably move her to Daryl's tent," Father Gabriel offers. "He tucks her in half the time anyway."

"Don't mind none," Daryl says, "but all I got is a cot. I can sleep on my bag on the planks, but it gets damn cold in winter. Fine for me, but for a little girl…mansion's warmer, with all the fireplaces."

"We can move her into the room I share with Gracie," Aaron offers. "I can set up a cot for myself and give Judith the top of the trundle bed I've been using. Gracie's on the bottom. She'll love having Judith as a roommate."

"So then it's resolved," Liam says hopefully.

"The room arrangements are resolved," Maggie agrees, "But I'm talking about the produce you'll consume. And I'm talking about the water. I'm talking about the very real possibility that you'll get Enid pregnant, maybe more than once, and we'll have more mouths to feed in the years ahead, not to mention the fact that Enid won't be able to work as much when she's pregnant or recently given birth. So maybe the Kingdom could offer us a little more for taking Liam in." Maggie looks at Roland. "A cock, maybe?"

"Pardon?" asks Roland, a slight smile on his face.

"I'm happy to be of service." Khalid wiggles his eyebrows at Rosita, who rolls her eyes.

"A _rooster_ ," Maggie clarifies. "We could really use a rooster to breed more chickens. Right now, we just get unfertilized eggs. Which are great to eat, but if we ever want more chickens – "

"- We only have one rooster," Khalid interrupts.

"I doubt Ezekiel will relinquish it," Roland agrees. "Even on loan. It's far too valuable."

"He might!" says Liam anxiously as he sits forward in his chair.

His father shoots him a warning look, and Liam settles back in his chair. Roland turns to Maggie again. "You're asking too much. Be reasonable. My son is very much in love, and you know it. Don't manipulate that to your advantage."

"Roland's right," Daryl speaks up. "Kid can hunt. 'S what we most need. He'll pay for himself in time. Let's just sign off on this shit." He's anxious to read the letter burning a hole in his pocket.

Maggie sighs.

"Way to be a team player, Daryl," Rosita tells him. "We might have gotten an extra chicken, at least, if you kept your mouth shut."

"Or we might have driven 'em to take Enid to the Kingdom!" Daryl's reluctant to admit it, but Enid's valuable. She's grown up a lot in the past couple of years. She can shoot well, and she's like a mother hen to a lot of the kids, if a bit of a gruff one. Judith would miss her – Enid is her favorite "auntie." So would mini-Glenn. Maggie's so busy running the Hilltop, that Enid's half-raising that boy.

"I agree with Daryl," Father Gabriel says calmly. "We're all friends here, and we should celebrate this gift of young love, and the hope it brings, without attaching demands."

"So we're agreed?" asks Roland, looking at Maggie.

She rubs her forehead. "All in favor?"

Daryl, Father Gabriel, and Aaron raise their hands at once. Rosita flips hers up indifferently.

"Then we're agreed," Maggie concludes. "But if the wedding is going to be at the Hilltop, the Kingdom is supplying half the food for the reception."

"I think that can be arranged." Roland holds out his hand to her, his lips tugging upwards in a smile above his cleft chin. "You drive a hard bargain."

Maggie shakes, and the Council disperses.


	17. Chapter 17

The light from the oil lamp casts shadows on the mosquito netting that surrounds Daryl's cot in his platform tent. Heels on the planks, he sits on the tent's floor with Carol's envelope in his hand. He's half afraid the letter is going to tell him not to come Sunday, that she made a mistake, that it was just a festival fling and she doesn't want to keep doing it.

Daryl flicks open his pocket knife and cuts the envelope along the edge before shaking the letter out. After returning his knife to his pocket, he picks up and unfolds the piece of paper.

 _Dear Pookie,_

 _I'm sorry I couldn't join the traders on this trip, but Roland had to be there for a special purpose, and, besides, I'm stuck helping to get these fruits jammed and these vegetables pickled, jarred, and preserved before they rot. We've been blessed with a bountiful harvest, and the root cellars will only keep things fresh for so long. I couldn't get away, but I'm really looking forward to Sunday._

 _I've made that apple butter, and I'll have a jar to send back with you. I thought maybe we could share some of that whiskey from that distillery the Hilltop looted in August. We could share a drink and play some cards after dinner. Maybe talk for a couple hours?_

A couple of hours? Daryl can't talk for a **couple of hours**.

 _I'm just kidding. We'll be having sex of course._

Daryl laughs with relief.

 _But maybe that will happen after we have a drink (just one this time!) and talk for at least a little bit? A girl does like to feel romanced first._

 _Yesterday, Henry went with Jerry, Dianne, and Robert on the wild turkey hunt. We're hoping to bag a few birds to smoke for Thanksgiving, but they've only caught one so far. Henry was proud to be chosen to join the hunt, though. He's started falconry lessons with Robert, but he has a lot to learn about hunting. Maybe you can teach him a thing or two about tracking sometime? I told him he'll never met a better tracker in his life._

 _Please send a letter back with Khalid. I haven't had a penpal since I was twelve. It would be fun to hear from you._

 _And, the truth is, I miss you already._

\- _Carol_

Daryl reads the letter a second and a third time, and reads the last line about ten times. He's pretty sure there's a shit-eating grin overtaking his face. He folds the letter up, slides his hunting knife from its sheath, and pries up the loose floorboard under his cot before laying the letter on top of his Victoria Secret catalog.

Maybe he should get rid of that catalog now that he's getting laid. What would Carol think if she knew? She'd probably _laugh_. Either that or she'd feel inadequate, because she doesn't know how damn beautiful she is. He plucks up the catalog and slams down the floor board. Then he seizes his oil lamp by the handle and slips through the canvas flaps covering his tent.

The night watchman is out, patrolling the camp, and two guards are on the fence, but most everyone else is either in bed or headed that way. He passes Rosita's RV camper, which she brought with her from the Sanctuary after the War with the Whispers, and sees her sitting in the open doorway with her feet on the top stair. Khalid stands off the side of the stairs, his shoulder leaned against the RV's side. The flowers are in an empty mason jar on Rosita's counter, next to her oil lamp, and she's laughing, but whether _with_ Khalid or _at_ Khalid Daryl doesn't know.

Daryl walks past two trailers and then an oil barrel flickering with a bonfire, which is providing light and warmth between two platform tents. He tosses the Victoria Secret catalog into the flames, on top of the burning debris. The flames dampen for a moment and then soar up again as the catalog blackens and the pages crinkle inward.

Two tiki torches flicker at the base of the stairs to the mansion. Daryl clamors up them and nods to Eugene, who is sitting in a rocking chair and tinkering with a battery contraption he's never gotten to work. Sharon, who is their butcher, is sitting on the deacon's bench and cleaning her boots. "Hey, Daryl," she says and smiles. She puts down her boot brush and casually tugs at the edge of her sweater, which forces the neck down to reveal some cleavage. "Good job bringing down that deer."

Daryl grunts in reply and wonders if maybe Carol was right, if maybe Sharon really _does_ want to fuck him.

Carol. Sharon. Cassandra. _Three_ women who want to fuck him? _Damn_.

He's strutting a little when he walks into the mansion and toward the open doorway of the study. The back of Roland's head comes into view first, and then the glass of whiskey in his left hand. He's sitting in one of the conference chairs across from Maggie, who is behind the great desk. Glenn, Jr. slumbers in his little nest of blankets and pillows on the oriental rug in front of the lightly burning fireplace. Maggie's own bedding still lies neatly rolled up at the end of the couch where she sleeps – never too far from the account books. Roland is right, Daryl thinks. Maggie _does_ need to have some fun.

Maggie lifts her glass and says to Roland, "This was the best part about weaning Glenn, Jr." She sips. "God, I missed it."

"Just like Gregory," Daryl says with a smirk as he walks in.

Roland half turns back to look at him. "Who's Gregory?"

"Someone it's a complete insult to compare me to," Maggie answers.

"Well then take it back," Roland demands.

Daryl stops beside Roland's chair. "I take it back," Daryl agrees. "'S just that asshole liked 's booze."

"But he didn't _earn_ it," Maggie replies. She points her glass at Roland. "Roland here was just proposing to me that we send one of our hens back with him to the Kingdom tomorrow, and they can breed her _there_ , since Ezekiel won't send the rooster _here_. When the chicks are hatched and fit to travel, they'll bring back the chicks and our hen. But they'll keep one chick in payment for the cock's services. What do you think?"

"Think if the Kingdom wants to pimp out its rooster, we should take 'em up on it. Gonna have less eggs for a while, but it'll be worth it in the long run."

"I'll have to assemble the Council in the morning and run it by everyone," Maggie tells Roland. "You don't need Ezekiel's approval before you bring back our hen?"

Roland shakes his head. "He gave me the authority to make any trade deals I wanted while here."

Maggie glances up at Daryl. "You need something?"

"Want a bottle of whiskey to take with me Sunday."

Maggie sets her whiskey glass on the desk. "In exchange for…?"

Daryl can't deny Maggie's kept these people safe and fed with few resources, but her utilitarianism is starting to get on his nerves. "In exchange for me supplyin' this whole fuckin' place with meat, how 'bout? You don't seem to have any problem pourin' two fingers for Cary Grant here. Just want my share!"

Roland lips twitch in an embarrassed smile as he sips the brown liquid in his glass.

Glenn, Jr. shifts before the fire, murmurs, and then settles again. Daryl feels guilty for yelling at Maggie. He's the reason she's a widow, the reason Glenn, Jr. is fatherless. Maggie may have forgiven him that, but he's never fully forgotten it.

"Calm down," Maggie says. "I asked because I thought maybe you were planning to trade one of the common bottles for something in the Kingdom."

"Nah. Just want _my_ share. Still got two bottles with my name on 'em."

"Okay then. You have the spare key to the pantry. Just make sure you sign it out. Anything else?"

"Paper," Daryl demands. "Pen. Envelope."

"You're writing a letter?" she asks doubtfully.

"Yeah. To Carol."

Maggie smiles. She pulls open the drawer and takes out two pens. Then she rolls open another drawer and sets an envelope on the desk. Finally, she gets a small stack of notebook paper. "Good luck," she tells him.

"Think I know how to write," mutters Daryl, scooping up the supplies.

But the truth is he's nervous. He's _never_ written a letter, except for that one ridiculous classroom assignment in 6th grade, when he was required to write a letter to his teacher about "what you like about this class," and it had to "use at least five adverbs. An adverb answers the questions how, where, when, why, and to what extent." What arbitrary bullshit. So, after carefully checking his spelling, and rewriting the letter twice, Daryl produced a perfect final draft -

 _Dear Ms. McKinney,_

 _What I like about this class is that you have really really really really really nice tits._

 _How nice? REALLY nice._

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Daryl_

He ended up in the principal's office, where he got his ass officially paddled, though it didn't hurt anything like his daddy's beatings, which began that past year, after Merle went away to juvie. It was the call to his father at work that put the fear of God in him.

Across the desk from the principal sat young Daryl, anxiously listening to the faint sound of the phone ringing on the other end of the line, praying his daddy hadn't shown up for work today, because sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he was too hungover. But the boss man answered, and went to the loading docks, and called Will Dixon to the phone. And when Will Dixon answered, the principal handed his phone over and made Daryl tell his father word for word what he'd done.

Daryl braced himself for an explosion, for his father to promise him a beating when he got home, but Will Dixon just laughed. "You're goddamn right, son," he said. "That teacher of yours _does_ have really nice tits. Now tell that principal to go fuck himself for interrupting me at work." And then there was a click.

As Daryl walks from the study now, he hears Roland ask Maggie, "Is he always that surly?"

Before leaving the mansion, Daryl stops by Aaron's bedroom, where Judith has already been moved. Liam isn't returning to marry Enid for a couple of weeks, but the young man is probably eager to share his fiancé's bed tonight.

Daryl pops his head in the open doorway just as Judith is fluffing her pillow and Aaron has pulled the blanket up to Gracie's neck on the trundle.

"Nite, Little Ass Kicker," he says. "Nite, Gracie."

"What am I?" Aaron asks. "Chopped liver?"

"Nite, honey pie," Daryl says with the sarcasm he first learned from his big brother.

Aaron chuckles.

"Read to me, my Daryl!" Judith demands.

"A'ight…"

Daryl wedges himself into Judith's bed, his boots hanging off the end, while Aaron settles into the cot he's set up for himself now that he has two little roommates instead of just one.

Daryl doesn't escape until he's read all of _Horton Hears A Who_ – twice. He doesn't mind. He likes Dr. Suess. Even when the letters shift a little, as they sometimes do when he's reading, he can read it without stumbling, because it's got a rhythm and a rhyme to it, and he can predict what's coming next. Also, when the print is big, like it is in children's books, the letters don't shift around as much. They shifted a lot more in Carol's letter.

He's a little worried about what's going to happen when Judith wants him to read more complicated books. He can read just fine – _to himself_ – but sometimes he skips words when they're being shifty and then backward-fills the gaps with inference. It works just fine for his own understanding, but you can't do that when you're reading _aloud_.

Not only Judith, but Gracie and Aaron fall asleep while he's reading. Daryl pulls the blanket up to Judith's chin and kisses her forehead before backing out of the bed so he won't step on Gracie on the trundle.

Back on the porch, Sharon is pulling on her cleaned-up boots while Eugene has the parts of his contraption fully disassembled again and strewn out on the deacon's bench.

"Big plans for the weekend?" Sharon asks him. "Tara said you're going back to the Kingdom? Falconry lessons or something?"

"Yeah. Gonna learn to hunt with one." It occurs to Daryl that if Carol is right and Sharon _does_ want to fuck him, maybe he should mention he's already gotten with someone else. But that might sound like bragging. He settles on, "'N to see Carol."

"Carol? The Silver Queen?"

Daryl hates that nickname some of the Hilltoppers have given her. But he mostly hates it because he used to think it meant they were all predicting she'd end up married to Ezekiel. Maybe they just mean it as a sign of respect. "Yeah."

"Eugene says you and Carol used to share a camp? Before the War with the Saviors?"

"Lots of camps," Daryl agrees.

"So you're good friends?"

"Mhmhm."

"Just friends?"

"She's…" What's he supposed to say to that? "She's my…m'Carol." Oh Jesus. Now he sounds like Judith, like a preschool age girl – _my Carol._ Like he owns her. Like he doesn't want anyone else to have the same special claim on her. Well, that last part's true, anyway.

He doesn't wait for Sharon's reaction or additional questions, but instead clamors down the stairs.

When he passes Rosita's RV, it's rocking. Grunts and moans are seeping out the partially opened window, along with Rosita's cry of "Harder!" and Khalid's, "You naughty girl!"

In the platform tent across from the RV, with the flaps pulled back, two orphaned teenage siblings - a boy and a girl - sit watching the RV and laughing.

"Ain't a zoo!" Daryl yells at them, and they pull the flaps of their tent abruptly down.

Back in his own tent, he sets the oil lamp down on his small table, kicks off his boots, and digs through the books sloppily stacked in the corner, looking for a good one to use as a clipboard. He rummages past Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_ , past _The Shooter's Bible 98th Edition_ , beyond _Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse,_ which he's read twice now, and settles on a hardback titled _Tracking and the Art of Seeing_ before plopping down on his cot.

What he told Carol about not reading at night wasn't precisely true. It's just that he usually reads for information instead of for pleasure. He did read that novel Andrea brought him after she shot him, though - _The Case of the Missing Man_. What else was there to do? It was good for about fifty pages and then it started to go to shit. If the detective hadn't been such a dumbass, the book would have been over in a hundred pages instead of two hundred and fifty. Daryl had it all figured out on page seventy-six.

He rests a sheet of notebook paper on the book and proceeds to chew on the pen.

 _Dear Carol_ , he thinks, _you have really, really, really, really nice tits._

He laughs to the schoolboy in himself.

Then he growls at himself for goofing off and concentrates on the task before him. The woman wants to be _romanced_. Too bad he doesn't know shit about romance.

He gets two lines into a letter, curses, crumples it up, and throws it at the stack of books in the corner.

He slides another clean sheet of paper onto the book.

An hour later, there are five crumpled balls of paper lying in the corner of the tent, and only three clean sheets of paper still left.

"Fuck," he mutters. She could have asked him for the moon, and he would have tried to shoot it down with his crossbow. But why'd she have to ask him for a goddamn _letter_?


	18. Chapter 18

Carol spends Friday morning sharing breakfast with Henry and listening to his excited chatter about the turkey hunt. Then she pickles and jars two crates of beets before practicing her knife throwing at the range in the football stadium. The archers practice to her far left, and she notices Liam joining them, thirty minutes late. The trade team has returned. Quickly, she gathers her knives to go find Khalid and, she hopes, a letter from Daryl.

She passes the Kingdom's chicken coop along the way, where Jerry and Nabila are introducing another hen to the mix.

"Where'd that come from?" Carol asks

"The Hilltop," Nabila replies. "We're going to make chicks for them."

"Her name's Clucky," Jerry tells her.

"The Hilltop names their chickens?" Carol asks.

Jerry shrugs. "No. But I do."

Carol chuckles. "Have either of you seen Khalid?"

"I think he headed to the gym when they got back," Nabila tells her.

Carol finds the swordsman in the school gym fencing with Ezekiel. Ezekiel's not much good with either sword or bow, but he's been trying to learn both. She waits for a break in the match to ask if Daryl sent anything back with him, but Khalid replies, "Sorry. No."

Her face must be noticeably fallen, because Ezekiel's offers her this comfort: "As the Bard of Avon once wrote, 'Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well, and yet words are _not_ deeds.'"

Ezekiel is right. Daryl is a man of action, a man who speaks with deeds instead of words. Even so, Carol's still feeling a bit down when she goes back to her trailer to have a late lunch.

The door is ajar, so she draws her knife before pushing it all the way open, only to find Roland on a stepladder tinkering with her ceiling fan.

She sheathes her knife as he climbs down from the step stool, unraveling the chain. "It works again. You've just got to yank it a little hard. Four minutes of winding should get you forty minutes of air."

"I appreciate it, but I won't need it until spring. Why is my repair a priority?"

Roland's lips from a friendly smile above his cleft chin. "Because you're the woman who makes the apple butter."

"Ah. I see." She walks over to her desk-pantry and pulls a small, baby-food-sized jar of apple butter down form the shelf. "Will this do?" She's saving a full-size one for Daryl, one for herself, and one for Henry and the boys next door.

"I'll take what I can get." Roland says as he plucks the little jar from her hand and slips it into the large cargo pocket of his work pants.

"How'd it go?" Carol asks. "At the Hilltop?"

"Maggie said yes to everything. The wedding will be at the Hilltop chapel in two weeks, and then Liam settles there permanently. He's got to tie up some loose ends here first."

"How does Ezekiel feel about it?"

"He's not thrilled about losing a good hunter, but we have others, and he's happy for Liam." Roland slides the step ladder closed and latches it together. "How long were Maggie and Glenn married, do you know?"

Forever, Carol thinks. It seemed like forever. But, in fact, it was "Less than two years."

"That's all?" he asks in surprise. "And he died, when? A little under three years ago?"

"About." Carol doesn't like to be reminded of this, even though she wasn't there when it happened. Maybe _especially_ because she wasn't there when it happened. She still feels guilty about that. She sometimes still wonders, if she was there, if she'd never left Alexandria, if she could have _stopped it_ somehow.

"She doesn't seem particularly ready to move on."

"Oh," Carol says in realization. Roland's _interested_. "Well, it was…she lost him in a particularly brutal way."

"Yes, I've heard the story. Do you think she ever will be? Ready? To move on?"

"I…I couldn't guess," Carol admits. Daryl probably knows better than she does how well Maggie has – or has not - healed. It's strange to think that they have different families now, when they were a part of one family for so long. "But there's never any harm in being a friend. And who knows where that might lead one day."

Roland chuckles. "I don't have your patience, Carol. But I do appreciate your advice." He lifts the step stool and heads toward the door, which she swings open for him, but then he pauses on the porch and turns back. "Oh, I almost forgot, Daryl asked me to give this to you." He digs into the other pocket of his work pants and pulls out a slightly crumpled envelope.

Carol's heart leaps as she takes it. The envelope is thick. Thicker than she would expect. Two pages at least. Possibly three. "Thank you. I wonder why he gave it to you instead of Khalid?" She used Khalid as her delivery boy, after all.

"Marking his territory, I suspect," Roland replies before he heads down the stairs.

Carol lets the door swing shut and then settles onto her couch, kicks off her boots, and puts her feet up on the coffee table before eagerly tearing open the envelope.

There _are_ three pages inside, but she sees why now. Daryl has written on only one side of the paper, because the ink has bled through, and he's written in somewhat large, childish print, leaving a blank line between each line. She sees also that the very first word after the greeting is misspelled and suddenly feels guilty for asking him to write. She didn't think about the fact that he may have had a terrible education, given how small his town was, and how remote his cabin. Even if he did have access to a decent education, his parents didn't support him it, and he may have been absent for much of it - either because he was home nursing his wounds after a beating, or he was present in the classroom but not _really_ present – listening to his stomach growl because he hadn't gotten enough to eat, or drifting off to sleep because home was not a safe place to close your eyes.

But as she reads, Carol begins to think Daryl's writing struggles might not just be a result of having slept through school, that maybe he has some kind of learning disorder, because he reverses letters in some words, and yet sometimes he doesn't, even in the _same_ words.

The paper shakes a little as she thinks how sweetly dedicated he was to push through writing her the letter anyway, and it shakes for other reasons to. As she reads, a teardrop falls on one of the lines and the ink runs.

 _Dear Carol,_

 _Your the first person ever wrote me a letter._

 _So this letter is gonna suck. Sorry abuot that._

 _Your not just my first letter._

 _Guess you been my first in a lot of ways._

 _Your the first person ever believed in me._

 _I mean really beleived in me._

 _Your the first person made me feel I wanted to be a part of the group._

 _Your the first woman ever saw my scars._

 _First woman ever made me blush._

 _And your the first woman I ever fucked totally naked._

 _I don't think I cuold ever be naked with anyone else._

 _I don't know what I'm sposed to say,_

 _cept I think abuot you all the time now._

 _To much. It's screwing with the hunt._

 _Guess that's how it is at the start._

 _That goes away after a while, right?_

 _The not being able ot focus thing?_

 _I'll bring you the whisky you asked for._

 _You deserve it._

 _We can play any card game you want to play._

 _Strip poker maybe?_

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Daryl_

The letter ends halfway down the second page. Carol wipes a tear from underneath her eye and shifts the second page under the third.

On the third page he's drawn a great big smiley face, and written underneath it: _You make me smile_.

She laughs so hard her chest shakes.

Carol returns to the first page and reads the letter again, laugh-crying the whole way through.

Finally, after her fourth read-through, she folds the letter up, slides it back in the envelope, and puts it safely in her top desk drawer.

[*]

Daryl sleeps about four hours on Saturday night and wakes before the first light of dawn. Carol's probably not expecting him to roll into the Kingdom before noon, but he can't stand waiting around here if he's not sleeping.

As soon as the first hint of sun rises on the horizon, he picks up his holster from the little, rough wooden night table - the handgun's already in it - and clips it to his belt. Then he packs his backpack – matches, extra ammo for his handgun, a full canteen, the last of his apples, two strips of deer jerky, the bottle of whiskey, a small bike pump, a patch for flat tires, a clean pair of socks, and a change of underwear – and straps it to the cargo rack on the back of his dirt bike. Then he slides his sleeveless, black leather vest over his long-sleeve, gray canvas shirt – because he knows he'll get hot biking if he wears his heavier long-sleeve jacket – and swings his crossbow on his back.

Daryl rolls his dirt bike through the camp, beneath the black-blue, slowly purpling sky, and unlatches the front gate. "Heading to the Kingdom already?" Tara calls down from the platform.

"Yeah. Lock up behind me?"

Tara nods, says something to Enid who is on the platform with her, and then climbs down the ladder. "Wait," she says and hands him two envelopes. "Can you give the top one to Dianne for me? And the bottom one to Liam for Enid?"

"Couldn't put names on the outside?"

Tara folds back the corner of one envelope. "That one's for Dianne."

He slips both into the pocket inside his vest. "Maybe I should ask Rosita if she's got one for Khalid."

Tara snorts. "I don't think she wants to encourage him to think he's her boyfriend. But she'll take him as a fuck buddy."

"So if ya write a guy a letter, that's like sayin' he's yer boyfriend?"

"Pretty much," Tara says.

"Hmm." Maybe it's a good thing he forced himself to write that letter, even if it was terrible - because maybe if he hadn't sent one back, Carol would think he didn't want to be her boyfriend.

He thinks of that note that little redheaded girl passed him in 4th grade. He woke up when she poked his arm with the sharp tip of the folded paper, raised his head from the desk, and took it warily. She turned straight around to face the teacher as he unfolded it. _Do you like me?_ It read. _Check yes or no_. And he checked no, because back then, he mostly liked cap guns, sling shots, and watching _Magnum P.I._ on the new 16-inch TV Merle bought at the Salvation Army. (Daddy broke the old one in a fit of rage.) That little redheaded girl moved to South Carolina the next year. But Daryl thought about her in the years to come, wondered what she saw in a blonde little boy who never paid any attention in class and got in fights on the playground.

Daryl mounts his bike and pedals through the gate. Tara closes and latches the gate behind him. He's maybe a quarter of a mile across the beaten-down dirt path toward the highway when he hears Tara yell from the platform, "Pedal, Forrest, pedal!"

Daryl flicks her off over his shoulder and pumps on.


	19. Chapter 19

Carol gives up trying to fall back to sleep and gets up to go for a jog as the sun slowly rises. The crisp air would seem cold if she weren't running, but because she is, she eventually stops by the Kingdom's pond to shed her sweatshirt. As she ties it around her waist, she watches the rays of sunlight rippling over the green-black water.

A toad croaks, hops past her, and vanishes into the marshy grasses of the pond. Carol stretches both arms and jogs on.

[*]

It's a lot easier to ride a motorcycle one handed and shoot a crossbow than it is to pedal a bike one handed and shoot a crossbow. That's what Daryl learns when he tries to take down a walker but ends up falling over.

He somersaults quickly across the asphalt, rises in a kneeling position, and shoots. The walker's body jolts back, lurches forward, and then falls face first, hard on the asphalt, snapping Daryl's homemade wooden bolt in the process.

"Shit," Daryl mutters. That's the third time that's happened in three months. He needs to talk to the Hilltop's blacksmith about forging some metal bolts.

When he picks up his bike, he finds the chain has fallen off. Daryl mutters a curse, kicks down the stand, and puts the chain back on before resuming his journey.

[*]

Carol breakfasts with Henry and talks him into going to the morning church service in the school theater. Sometimes the boy makes an excuse, but most of the time, he goes with her. The service is run by Brother Ignatius, who at least has the virtue of delivering what Henry calls "speed homilies," though the boy thinks the liturgy is too long and calls all the standing, sitting, and kneeling "church aerobics."

Carol was raised Catholic, however, and the comfortable cadence of the familiar words relaxes her. It also reminds her of what little time she got to spend with her father, and now, increasingly, as he spreads his wings more and more, it's one of the few times she gets to spend with Henry. She wishes she could have shared the experience with Sophia, but Ed cut her off from churchgoing before Sophia was ever born. Ed didn't like all the "busybodies" asking after their health and happiness and shooting worried looks in Carol's direction.

She wonders what Father Gabriel's church service at the Hilltop is like, if he follows an Episcopal liturgy or makes it more ecumenical. She wonders if Daryl ever attends, and decides it's extremely unlikely he does. And that in turn makes her wonder if he would ever go with her if they lived in the same community and she asked.

After church, Carol tidies up her trailer, just for something to do. The problem with travel by bicycle in the apocalypse is that you never really know when anybody is going to arrive. All Carol knows is that Daryl will be here sometime before his afternoon falconry lesson.

In the end, she decides to go to the front gate and tell Jerry she'll relieve him on watch. "But you're not on duty," he says.

"I don't mind. Take Nabila on a picnic."

Jerry grins and lumbers down the ladder.

Carol's only been on watch for twenty minutes when, through her binoculars, in the far distance, she spies Daryl cresting a hill, pedaling hard, the unbuttoned sleeves of his gray canvas shirt rolled up almost to his shoulders, his sweaty arms glistening in the morning sun.

He begins coasting downhill, sitting back on the bike now, and letting go of the handle bars as he takes a swig from his canteen. Then he's out of sight where the road curves, but soon he's back on the straight path toward the gate.

He spies her on the wall, leans forward, and pedals faster. She calls to a man, who is walking by, and asks, "Andrew, will you take over watch for me? Please? My friend from the Hilltop's arrived."

Reluctantly, Andrew agrees, and after she's scurried down the ladder, he climbs up. Carol hastily unlatches the gate and swings it open.

Daryl flies through the opening and dismounts his bike while it's still moving, letting it careen to its side on the ground. They walk quickly to each other. There's a hug, an attempted kiss, and an awkward bumping of noses, followed by mutual chuckles.

"Sorry 'm earlier 'n I said I be."

"I like early," she says and kisses his cheek. Then she lifts his fallen bike. "Come on. We'll park this at my trailer."

Daryl closes and latches the gate and falls in step beside her as she pushes the bike. They steal glances, mirror each other's smiles, and duck their heads.

Carol feels like a silly schoolgirl. She's over the hill now, halfway to a hundred, and yet she feels like she's fourteen again. It's ridiculous. She can't even think of what to say to him.

Fortunately, he speaks first. "Sorry m'letter sucked."

"I _loved_ your letter," she assures him. "It meant a _lot_ to me. It made me cry a little, actually."

"Wasn't s'posed to make ya cry!"

She laughs. "The good kind of cry," she explains. "The best kind. I loved it. I really did."

Daryl flits his eyes away and chews on his thumbnail. She attacks the awkwardness by asking, "You wanna fool around?"

He doesn't say _Stahp_. "Now?" he asks.

"You've got a few hours before your lesson."

"Thought ya wanted a drink first. 'N…talkin'."

"Well, you're not getting out of that. But maybe we'll reverse the order. Save the drinking and talking for after dinner."

He smiles. "Yeah?" he asks hopefully.

"Yes," she says decisively.

[*]

When they get through her trailer door, Carol is on him like white on rice, as Merle used to say. She practically shoves him back against the trailer door, and it thuds and rattles. Their mouths crush together and their tongues collide.

Since Carol's hands are already under his shirt, he figures he can put his over hers, on her breasts, and he does, kneading them gently through the fabric.

Carol moans against his mouth. He slides his thumb over her nipple and she gasps. He can feel the bud hardening through her shirt and bra. His hard-on strains against his zipper as he pops free two of the buttons over her breasts and slides his hand inside her bra to tweak a nipple.

She steps back and he fears maybe he's done too much too fast, but she's only putting space between him so she can unbuckle his belt. The buckle clangs as she brushes it aside to seize his zipper, which she pulls down with a rasp. Her hand in the waistband of his boxers, she tugs him toward the bed.

[*]

Carol lies gloriously naked beneath him, doing that thing she does with her lip, when she bites it and whimpers. Daryl thrust harder inside her. Carol whimpers again, wraps her legs up around his waist, and jerks up while he drives down.

"Aw fuck….Aw Carol….sweet….holy….aw….fuuuuuuuuck….."

He loses it.

He loses it before she quite cums and spills into her with a strangled groan. She urges him to roll off, takes his hand, and draws it between her legs. She kisses him hard while she guides his fingers where she wants them. He's only touched her for three seconds when her mouth freezes against his and she bucks beneath his hand, letting a long moan spill into his mouth.

Carol stills. Then she laughs.

"Ya a'ight?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine. I'm _great_."

"Sorry."

"Why?"

"Didn't get ya off first."

"Well, you sure got me off. That's what matters."

"Just…" Taking in a breath, he settles on his side and draws her flush against his chest, facing him. "Been thinkin' bout this the whole ride over. Guess I was too ready."

She kisses him. "Well, later tonight, you can take more time with me."

He grins. "Yeah? We're doing it again?"

"Eventually."

He presses his forehead to hers. "Thanks. Needed to get that out the way."

She draws back. " _Out of the way_?"

"Didn't mean it like that! Mean…don't think I could concentrate on the falconry lesson if we hadn't done this first."

"It's possible I've been thinking about it all day, too."

His eyes meet hers. "Yeah?"

She smiles. "Maybe."

They kiss, slow, gentle kisses, until Carol pulls away and lays her head on his chest. Daryl caresses her back with a single fingertip. They lay like that for a long while, atop the made-up bed, their sex-warmed, naked bodies pressed together.

[*]

Carol has almost drifted off to sleep when Daryl's stomach growls. _Loudly._ She lifts her head. "Did you have lunch?" she asks.

"Had an apple and a couple pieces of jerky 'bout halfway through my ride."

"And that's all you've had today? For a fifteen-mile ride? Go get something off my pantry."

"Yes'm." Daryl slides off the bed and she admires his ass as he pulls on his boxers before walking over to the counter. "What can I have?"

"Anything you want," she says as she pulls down the blankets and crawls naked under them.

"This my apple butter?" He pulls a mason jar off the shelf.

"It is now."

He unscrews the lid, dips his finger right into the contents, and then sucks the apple butter off his finger.

"Do you have any idea how maddening that is?" she asks him.

"Sorry. Didn't see no spoon. 'M I too crass, for ya?"

"That's not what I meant by maddening."

He dips his finger back into the jar and sucks it clean again. Then he does it a third time.

"Give me a taste," she says, and he brings the jar over and holds it out to her. "I don't want to get my finger sticky. Use yours."

He shrugs and dips his finger into the apple butter. She puts her hand on his wrist, leans forward, and sucks the butter slowly off his finger. Then she swirls her tongue around the tip of his finger.

"Damn," he murmurs as she pulls away.

" _That's_ what I mean by maddening."

Daryl swallows hard. His mouth opens slightly and a happy breath escapes. But then his stomach growls again.

"Get something more substantial, Pookie," she tells him. "I've got some nuts over there."

"Y'all grow nuts?"

"There were already black walnut trees here when Ezekiel established the camp. They're…earthy. Not like the English walnuts you used to get in the grocery store. There's some already shelled in the top left drawer, in a baggie. You can have it."

Daryl takes her up on the offer, tossing the nuts back and humming as he chews and swallows. It only takes two bites before they're gone. "Not bad. Goes good with the apple butter." He takes another dip and lick.

Carol snuggles a little further down under the covers and lays her head on the pillow. "I think I'm going to take a nap. You want to join me?"

"Can't. Be too groggy for my lesson when I wake up."

"Well, I'm napping. You have fun. That's clean water in the ceramic basin, if you want to spot clean so you don't smell so much like sex."

He comes over, leans down, and kisses the top of her head. "Like yer smell on me."

[*]

When Daryl leaves the trailer – after having washed up a little after all – Khalid is smoking on the porch of the trailer opposite. Silently, the swordsman pulls out a cigarette and holds it up in offering.

Daryl can't say no to that. It's going to taste especially good after sex. He joins Khalid by the railing. "No plumbin' today?" he asks as he leans in for the light. Daryl draws back and sucks in until the tobacco leaves poking out the tip of the rolled paper glow orange-red. Then he breathes out a satisfying string of smoke.

"We started digging another well today, but I'm taking a break. We'll have to stop the work in winter…but it should be functional by mid-Spring."

"Can ya wait that long?"

"It's a pro-active measure. We have all the water we need right now, as long as we don't full-on bathe more than three times a week. But Ezekiel and his advisors have established what they call a _sustainable growth_ plan. We're building for the future. People are having kids. And sometimes, even now, we still find survivors who aren't _completely_ insane."

"His advisors?" Daryl thought the Kingdom was a benign monarchy, not a Council-model. "Who're his advisors?"

"Well, Carol for one, of course."

 _Of course_? She's never mentioned she was part of the government. Not that it surprises him. Who the hell _wouldn't_ want Carol on their Council?

"And Roland. Nabila. Dianne. Jerry."

" _Jerry_?"

Khalid laughs. "Yeah, I haven't figured that one out. I think maybe he just plays the court jester. Although…his ingenuousness can be refreshing."

"They elected?"

"The advisors? No. Ezekiel appoints them. But they do all vote on issues, and he does abide by the outcome of those votes."

Daryl takes a drag. "And ain't no one grumbled? 'Bout 'Zeke havin' all this power? Pickin' his own Council?"

"Has anyone grumbled about Maggie?"

"She don't pick the Council. We's elected."

"Maybe she doesn't _pick_ ," Khalid reasons, "but she guides the elections, doesn't she? Every six months, the Council turns over just as she desires. It's what we hear in the Kingdom, anyway."

"Hear? Hear from who?"

Khalid shrugs. "People talk. There's a grapevine. Word travels."

"Well, it ain't true. We got elections. Secret ballot. Three counters. Ain't no way for her to _guide_ the outcome, 'cept the same way everyone's got – free speech."

"Well okay then. I stand corrected." Khalid takes a puff, looks across at Carol's trailer, and says, "I thought you said Carol wasn't your woman?"

"Uh…well…'s…been…developments."

" _Developments_ ," Khalid echoes with a chuckle. "How's Rosita?"

"A'ight."

"Did she ask you tell me anything? Send a letter or anything?"

"Uh…said to say hi," Daryl lies. But that suddenly reminds him he does have two letters to deliver. He takes a drag on the cigarette, holds it up to Khalid in a salute, and says, "Thanks for this. See ya 'round."


	20. Chapter 20

Daryl grinds out the butt of his cigarette on the sidewalk behind the school, where he finds Liam working with Roland to grease the tracks of the first-floor windows from the outside.

"Kid's a handy man, too, huh?" Daryl asks. "Think the Hilltop scored on this one."

"Liam will be missed," Roland agrees. "But I've volunteered to replace Jerry on the Hilltop trade team, so I'll be seeing him once a month."

"Yeah," Liam says with a smirk. "I'm sure it's _me_ you want to see, Dad."

Daryl wonders what that means, but he doesn't ask as he opens his vest and draws out an envelope. "Got a letter for ya. From Enid."

Liam seizes the envelope eagerly.

"Know where Dianne is?" Daryl asks.

"She might be in her room," Roland replies. "She usually eats a late lunch. Room 234. Second floor. Just past stairwell B. You need to go around front. The back doors are locked to the outside."

Daryl nods and heads past a garden where Nabila is pulling up weeds and down the long brick outer wall to the corner, which he rounds. A strand of apple trees line the right side of the sidewalk. He's rounded the next corner and is walking toward the front doors when he hears Liam calling his name and boots smacking the sidewalk. Daryl slows to a stop.

"Uh…." the young man says when he catches up. "I think maybe this one was supposed to be for Dianne?" Liam holds up the open envelope, with the messily re-folded letter poking out.

"Oh, sorry. Must of forgot which was which." Daryl pulls out the other envelope and trades.

"I didn't know she was gay. But that letter's kind of hot." Liam nods to the envelope Daryl is now returning to the inside pocket of his vest. "I mean, what I accidentally read of it. Penthouse letter quality."

"Hell you know 'bout Penthouse for?"

"I was sixteen when the world ended. Not six. And I've looted my share of seedy convenience stores."

"Yeah, well, don't let it give you unrealistic expectations for married life."

Liam laughs. "I never took you for a Dr. Phil type."

"I ain't. 'S just….Enid. She's like…a niece or some shit."

"I'm not an idiot. I know what I've got with her. And I know the difference between fantasy and reality." He grins. "And reality's pretty damn good." His grin freezes. "Not that…" He looks at Daryl warily - "Not that I would necessarily know that. Yet."

Daryl grunt-laughs and walks on. When he gets to room 234 he knocks on the chipped paint of the blue door. Cassandra – the archer who hit on him – answers.

"Well, hello Daryl," she says, raising one arm straight up against the inside of the door in a stretch that emphasizes her chest. "What brings you here?"

"Thought this was Dianne's room."

"Oh, handsome, you don't have to make excuses." She sashays back. "You're welcome to come on in. Avanaco's out hunting. I don't expect him back for an hour."

"Nah. Lookin' for Dianne. Roland told me 234."

Her shoulders fall a little. "Roland always gets people's room numbers confused. Dianne's in 243. Sure you don't want to come in?"

"Nah. No."

"I take it Carol wants you two to be exclusive?"

Does everyone know he and Carol are fucking now? "Mhmhm."

"Well, just so you know, I'm the Queen of Discreet."

"Lady, if yer the Queen of Discreet, then 'm the Goddamn King of Good Manners."

Daryl hears her huff, but has no time to see her expression as he turns and walks away, past 236, 238, 240, and 242 and then across the hall to 243.

Thankfully, Dianne answers this time. Over her shoulder, he sees three longbows, a compound bow, and two quivers hanging from hooks on the wall by the window. "Got a letter for ya. From Tara."

She follows his gaze at the bows and asks, "You want to come in and look at them?"

He's got nothing better to do, so he does. She's turned the classroom into an apartment of sorts. It seems big for one person, but the Kingdom has so much more space than the Hilltop, with all these classrooms and trailers. He hands her the letter and walks to the wall.

"Why is this open?" she asks. "Did you read it?"

"Nah." He draws down one of the longbows. "Liam did."

" _Why_?"

"Thought I was givin' 'em Enid's letter." He feels the grip with one hand and runs two fingers along the string.

"And you couldn't have exercised more caution?"

"Hey, I ain't the one couldn't be bothered to label the outside. When ya write back, tell yer girlfriend 'n address would be helpful."

"So you'll take a letter back for me?"

Daryl puts the longbow up. "'Course." Dianne begins to unfold the letter as he takes down another one of the bows to examine it. "Might want to read that in private," he warns her, and she tucks the letter back in the envelope.

"So," she asks, "when are you and I going to have a rematch?"

"Not today," he mutters. "Got plans."

"At Liam and Enid's wedding, then," she insists.

"At the _weddin_?"

"Well, not _at_ the wedding. _After_. The guests are staying the night, I assume?"

"Don't really have anywhere to put y'all."

"Not that many of us are coming. Eleven people, maybe. I can probably stay with Tara. Khalid with Rosita. Carol, I assume, with you. Roland will probably manage to find a room to share."

Daryl grunts. So _that's_ why Roland wants to be on the trade team. Daryl wonders who he's banging at the Hilltop. Sharon, maybe? That would be convenient. Get her off _his_ heels. And get Roland off Carol's. Though if Roland was going to make a move on Carol, he probably would have already. Hell, maybe he did and got shot down. He chuckles internally at the idea. Cary Grant. Getting the cold shoulder from the Silver Queen.

"The others can camp out in sleeping bags in the foyer," Dianne concludes.

"A'ight. Yer on then. After the weddin'. 'S the wager?"

"One of my longbows. And you can bet your spare crossbow."

"Only got one spare."

"So you think you're going to lose, then?" The hint of a smirk lines her lips.

"Hell no! Ain't gonna lose. Sure. Bet my spare bow."

"Then it's a deal." Dianne extends her hand, and he shakes.

He returns the longbow he was examining to the hook and leaves her to her letter.

[*]

On his way out of the school, before he reaches the bottom of stairwell B, the stairway door flings opens and Avocado strolls in. He stops before the bottom step and stares up at Daryl as the door creaks shut. The man's long black hair is drawn into a pony tail. A longbow hangs from his right shoulder, and a quiver from his left. He narrows his dark eyes at Daryl, looks suspiciously up the stairs, and asks, "What are you doing here?"

"Came to see Carol."

"Carol lives in one of the _trailers_. Not on the second floor."

"Just came from Dianne's."

"Carol _and_ Dianne? And you want my wife _too_?" He pounds up three steps, until there's only one stair between him and Daryl. "How many fucking women do you need?"

Daryl steps down, close enough that they almost bump chests. "Ain't got no interest in your wife, Kemosabe. _I_ ain't yer problem. So get the fuck out my way."

Avocado glares at him, and Daryl hopes he makes a move. Raises a fist. Shoves him back. Spits. _Anything_ to give him a reason. He knows it would be a bad idea to get in a fight in the Kingdom, that Carol won't be happy about it, but the urge flares up in him and crackles through his muscles and brain.

Avocado's nostrils flare, but he steps aside, and Daryl has to walk on. And he finds, somewhat to his surprise, that he doesn't have to walk for long before the urge to fight begins to recede and, with it, the old instinctive anger.

And then something even stranger takes its place – _pity_. It occurs to him, suddenly, that Avocado might love his wife.

[*]

Daryl's somewhat embarrassed to be the only grown man at the falconry lesson. There are four teenagers – Henry, a, tall, lean black kid named Matt, that redheaded girl Elizabeth, who held her own in the archery competition, and some short, scrawny kid named Jake. "Jake's a fairy," peeping Cayden said that night of the festival. Daryl's glad _that_ jerkoff isn't here, at least.

Daryl's behind the kids by six lessons, so Robert does a refresher for him. Henry sighs heavily. "We've been through all this."

"It doesn't hurt to review the basics," Elizabeth tells him.

Henry looks at her, shifts apologetically on his feet, and says, "Yeah. I guess not."

Because of Daryl's hunting and tracking experience, he's brought up to speed quickly and Robert fast forwards over a lot of the introductory material he taught to the kids.

Daryl's fascinated by the way Robert commands his bird of prey, and by its speed, power, and will to kill. When the great bird is actually resting on the heavy glove that clothes his arm, and he can feel its talons wrapped around him, Daryl's the slightest bit uneasy.

"Why does Daryl get to hold it already and we haven't?" Henry wants to know.

"Next week," Robert assures the boy.

When the lesson is over, and he's heading out of the stadium behind the kids, Daryl hears Elizabeth asking Henry, "So, any luck with Rachel at the festival?"

"Nah," Henry says. "She just blew me off."

"She's sort of a bitch," Elizabeth tells him.

"That's not true! Don't say that."

"Well...you could do way better."

"Yeah?" Henry asks. "Who? There's hardly any other girls my age."

Elizabeth tucks a strand of curly, red hair behind her ear. "Who says they have to be your age? It's not like there's a _law_ or anything. I mean, you could go a _little_ older. Two, three, four years."

Henry glances at her curiously.

Daryl walks quickly past and ahead of them. That girl is going to give Henry one hell of an education, he thinks. He wonders if Carol would disapprove of them dating. Henry's only fourteen, and Elizabeth looks seventeen.

Daryl almost popped his cherry when he was fourteen. He considered it. There was this older girl his cousin told him about. She liked virgins. And she liked making them _not_ virgins. And then she didn't like them anymore. It seemed like an easy way to get it done, but he just didn't like the idea…that whole parade of guys before him. So eventually, when he was sixteen, he managed to get a regular girl. But it was ten months of drive-in movies, cutting class to make out under the bleachers, and scoring her beer and cigarettes before she let him in her pants. Maybe she never should have. He wonders if she ever regretted it – what she did to their baby. He thinks she may have, at one time, but then she probably settled down with some accountant, moved up an entire class overnight, and had four kids.

"You, sir, are looking rather gloomy!" A hand claps down on Daryl's shoulder. He didn't notice Ezekiel coming up on him. "Why such a long face?"

Daryl narrows his eyes at Ezekiel's hand on his shoulder, and the man removes it, but he doesn't stop smiling.

"Ain't gloomy," Daryl says. "Just…thinkin'."

"Carol asked me to tell you that she's tending to the Sunday dinner. If you have nothing better to do until dinner, perhaps you'd like to join some of us in a game of wits?"

"A game of _wits_?" Daryl asks.

"Khalid and Roland and I like to play Trivial Pursuit on Sunday afternoons."

"Uh….no."

Daryl follows his nose and finds the outdoor kitchen, where a hog is spinning on a pit over the fire and being basted. Carol is mixing extra sauce in a bowl on a wooden counter.

"Smells damn good. Wish we had pigs."

"The Hilltop has goats and cows. Milk and cream and butter." She smiles. "And an excellent hunter who brings back lots of venison. I wouldn't complain too much." Carol stops stirring her sauce, picks up a tablespoon, and dips it in the bowl. She wiggles an eyebrow and asks suggestively, "Want to taste my sauce?"

"Stahp."

[*]

Dinner is better than at the Hilltop. The Hilltop cooks aren't bad, but they aren't Carol – not that Carol made the entire thing, but that sauce – damn. And the green beans were something else too. He never liked green beans growing up, but that could be because Mama just poured them straight out of the can, demanding, "Eat your damn vegetables."

Stephanie and her little girl Olivia are at their table, and Olivia wants to know where Judith is. Daryl promises her they'll arrange another sleepover soon. "Can bring her next Sunday."

"You can't bring Judith on your dirt bike," Carol tells him.

"Take a horse. Ain't bein' used for a run next week, don't think. Or I'll take the rickshaw."

Carol snorts and covers her mouth. "Sorry, just trying to picture you pulling a rickshaw. And if you do that, you'll need a third, to watch the road and kill walkers."

"You could bring Rosita," suggests Khalid, who has also settled at their table. "I'm sure she's an excellent road watcher."

Daryl grunts noncommittally.

When the plates are cleared there's music – violin and flute and twelve-string guitar, and some of the kids singing in a choir. Carol wants to stay and listen. They sit on the picnic bench, leaned back against the table, and Carol slides close to him and lays her head on his shoulder. Daryl notices people noticing, including some women whispering to each other.

The sun is starting to set when the instruments are packed up, and as they walk back to Carol's trailer, she slips her hand in his. Daryl hasn't walked holding a girl's hand since he was eighteen, if you don't count Judith's or Gracie's. He feels awkward, not quite sure where his fingers go, but eventually they settle laced through hers. As they head to her trailer, he's anxiously aware that she's going to want to sit on that love seat and _talk_ , like people who are dating are supposed to do.

 _Don't fuck it up_ , he tells himself.


	21. Chapter 21

Maybe the whiskey will help ease his nerves and loosen his tongue. Daryl pours an ounce and a half in each glass. Then he adds a piece of chipped off ice from the ice house to Carol's before sitting down next to her on the love seat and putting his bare feet up on the table.

She takes a small sip and hisses. "I've never actually had whiskey before."

"Really?"

"I told you I didn't drink until I was 21. I mean, other than communion wine. And even then I only had two beers on my birthday."

"'N now yer shakin' martinis?"

She shrugs. She takes another little sip, and Daryl chuckles when her eyes widen.

"Ya like it?" he asks.

"I don't know yet."

"Maybe let the ice melt a little. Won't burn so much." He raises his glass and lets a long sip slide down his throat.

Carol puts her feet up on the table beside his. "So what was your first job?"

A question. That's easy. He can answer a question. "Mhmm…Well, started collectin' cans down by the creek when I's nine, you know, turn 'em into the recycling center at the grocery store for change."

"I mean a real job."

"Started weedin' gardens when I's eleven. Trimmin' brush."

"Mowing lawns?" she asked.

"Ain't no one had lawns near me. Just dirt and rocks and brush and weeds and shit."

"So you were a young entrepreneur?" she asks teasingly.

"Got a paper route when I's twelve. When I's fourteen, got a work permit 'n got a job at the gas station."

She smiles. "Full service?"

"Yeah. Back when they still had those. Ya know, check the oil, wash the winduhs, fill the tank."

"I'd love to have you bent over my hood. And pumping for me. Just pumping and pumping…."

" _Stahp_."

"Why?"

"'Cause yer so damn corny!"

"You love it," she insists.

"Little bit maybe," he admits with a slight smile.

Carol bumps his shoulder, which he thinks means he's supposed to put his arm around her, so he moves his whiskey to his left hand and lays his right arm across her shoulders. She snuggles in. It's quiet for a long time, and he wonders if that means he's supposed to say something. But he can't think of anything to say. "Wanna play cards?" he asks at last. At least if they're playing cards it won't seem so strange that he's not talking.

"Not now I don't think. I like this. Just snuggling and talking."

Shit. That's a signal for him to say something else and he doesn't have a clue what to say. He listens to the crickets chirping outside the trailer, looks in his glass, sips, and sets it down on his knee.

Carol asks, "What was she like, your high school girlfriend?"

The question startles him, but at least he doesn't have to come up with a topic anymore. "Uh…she was….dunno. Average lookin' I guess. Light brown hair. Brown eyes. Small tits. Nice ass."

Carol laughs. "I don't mean what she _looked_ like. Her personality. Was she sweet?"

"Nah. She was kind of bossy."

" _Bossy_?"

"Called all the shots. Where we'd go. What we'd do. All the damn time. But she could be fun, too, sometimes. Had this _laugh_. 'N she was smart. She didn't do her homework and she skipped class sometimes, but she'd ace all the tests. End up with a B in everything. 'N, hell, I couldn't get a C+ even when I _tried_."

"Because you're dyslexic?"

"What?"

"I thought maybe…I think maybe…you had a reading or writing problem no one helped you with."

Daryl's jaw clinches and he takes another sip of the whiskey. "'M letter sucked that bad, huh?"

"No! I told you I loved it. It was the perfect letter. I've read it twenty times since I got it. It was perfectly… _you_. I mean that. You don't know how much it meant to me."

Daryl studies her eyes, and it's clear to him that she's being sincere. "Glad ya liked it." He looks away, into his glass. "Took me awhile. Guess maybe I do got somethin'. Dunno if 's 'lexia. 'S somethin' though."

"But you're smart, too, you know." She rests a hand on his knee. "You're always teaching yourself new things. You're smarter than most men I've met."

He chuffs. "Ya believe all sorts of crazy shit 'bout me."

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to stop believing it."

That makes him want to kiss her something awful, so he does, but whether it's the whiskey or the taste of her that burns his lips, he doesn't know.

[*]

Carol loves these kind of kisses, slow and deep, with foreheads pressed together in between as they gather their breath. She's starting to tingle, but she doesn't want to go _there_ just yet, so she pulls back and takes another small sip of her whiskey.

She can feel Daryl watching her mouth as she drinks. Her eyes flit down just enough to spy the stirring of an erection against his zipper. She settles her head back against his shoulder. "Talk to me some more."

That demand results in utter silence. So she takes another very small sip of the whiskey and waits.

And waits.

Daryl runs a finger around the rim of his glass until it whistles. He stops, and finally says something. "'S yer favorite TV show as a kid?"

"Captain Kangaroo."

"Mean …older. Not when you was little little."

"Don't laugh."

He laughs.

"I said _don't_ laugh!"

"Ya ain't even said what it was yet!"

" _The Love Boat_ ," she admits.

Daryl groans.

"I had such a terrible crush on Gopher."

"Gopher! That little pipsqueak?"

"Oh, you know the _Love Boat_ characters well, do you?"

"Nah! No! Mean…might of seen it _once_."

Carol laughs. "What was yours?"

" _Magnum P.I._ "

"Oh, I had such a crush on Rick."

Daryl's voice is confused and a little bit sad at the same time. "Rick Grimes?"

"No. Rick on _Magnum P.I_. You know, his buddy?"

" _That_ guy? _Gopher_ and _Rick_? What, ya like 'em short?"

"Good thing for you."

"I ain't short! 'M two inches taller 'n the average man."

"One inch, maybe," she says with a smirk.

"Hey! 'M least three inches taller n' you. _Four_."

"The perfect balance," she says. "We line up just right."

He flushes. She loves making him flush like that. _Your the first woman ever made me blush_ , she thinks. "I also had a crush on Michael J. Fox. You know, _Family Ties_?"

"Nah! C'mon! He was like…five foot."

"Five foot five," she insists. "I know. I had the pull-out poster from _Teen Beat_. It had all the facts in the lower left-hand corner."

"You shittin' me?"

"I bought that magazine every month with my babysitting money."

"You're shittin' me."

She pats his knee. "Come on. Didn't you have any celebrity crushes in your youth?"

"Yeah. Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels. Like a _normal_ person. Yer s'posed to have a crush on Magnum P.I. Not _Rick_."

"I didn't like Tom Selleck's porn star mustache. I liked my men clean shaven." Daryl glowers, and she strokes his goatee. "Back then. _This_ I like. A lot. So don't shave it."

"Gonna shave it. Shave the beard part and just grow a thick porn stache."

"Don't. Don't you _dare_ do it."

He laughs behind closed lips.

"I don't think you _could_ do it anyway."

"Yeah." He takes his arm off from around her and strokes his own chin. "Kind of patchy as is."

"Well, I like it."

"So what was he like?" Daryl asks as he drops his arm back around her. "The guy who popped yer cherry? He an asshole?"

She wasn't expecting the question, but she supposes turnabout's fair play. "He had black hair and brown eyes, broad shoulders, and a medium-sized cock."

Daryl glowers at her, and she laughs.

"Yeah, he was an asshole," she says. "He never hurt me physically, but he was pretty selfish. He just kept pushing and pushing…trying to make me feel guilty about wanting to wait to have sex…I was trying to be a good Catholic girl. But finally I gave in. And then he dumped me two months after I put out because he said I was too plain vanilla. In the sex department."

"What a cocksucker."

"He was a football player."

"Ya dated a football player?" Daryl asks skeptically.

"Well, I was a cheerleader."

"You're shittin' me!"

Carol laughs. "No. I really was. I was a cheerleader, and an A- student, and I was in CYO – "

"Hell's CYO?"

"Catholic Youth Organization. Did you ever go to church growing up?"

Daryl sips the last drop of his whiskey and sets his empty glass on his left knee. "My nana – my mama's mama - dragged me and Merle to Windy Creek Bible Church when I's seven and he's thirteen. Nearly killed us drivin' there 'cause she's so damn old and half blind. Never set foot in that church before and didn't know why the hell we had to do it. She told us to go up at the altar call and get saved. So we did. That pastor dunked us right then and there. Didn't go back again for six months. 'N that was for her funeral."

"Were you close? You and your nana?"

"Dunno. Not really. She lived in a single-wide out back behind the cabin. Didn't see 'er much. Kept to 'erself. But she was a'ight. Hardly ever yelled at me or Merle. Gave us them fake Oreos whenever'd we'd come over to her trailer."

"And did you ever go to that church again?"

"After Mama died and Merle was in juvie, 'n me and my dumbass daddy were livin' in Nana's old trailer 'cause the cabin burned down….one Sunday we didn't have no food in the place, 'n I 'membered church had donuts. So I pedaled my bike there – three miles or so. Didn't go to the service- just went to the donut table after."

Carol chuckles.

"I'd drink a big old glass of orange juice and shove four donuts in my pockets and high tail it out of there. Third week I did it, got caught by an elder. Asked if I was raised in a barn, wanted to know where my mama was so he could _have a word_ with 'er. Told 'em my mama done burned up, 'n I'd just biked down there for the donuts. Then he took me out to lunch at the Piggly Wiggly. Bought me the works. Told me if I wanted to keep comin' to church, I could meet him on the corner of my neighborhood, 'n he'd pick me up and give me a ride, 'n he'd take me out for lunch after service. So I took 'em up on it."

"What a kind man. He saw you were hungry and – "

"- Nah, weren't a kind man. Goddamn perv." Daryl gets up to pour himself another ounce of whiskey. "Want more?"

She holds up her glass to show she hasn't even finished what's in it. When he sits down again next to her, she asks, warily, "How so?"

"Usually after lunch he'd drop me off at the bottom of the hill, half mile from the trailer. But this one time, took a detour, parked in an abandoned dirt lot, and started saying weird shit, like 'bout what good friends we've become, and how good friends sometimes show their affection by touchin' each other."

"Oh my God."

"I was in sixth grade by then. Weren't no goddamn moron. So when he reached over 'n put his hand on my thigh, I pulled out my pocket knife and stabbed it in his leg. Tried to pull the knife back out, but he was screamin' so damn much I just threw open the door and ran. Never went to that church again. Never saw 'em again. Lost a damn good pocket knife though. Really pissed me off."

"Losing the pocket knife?" Carol asks. "That's what pissed you off about that scenario?"

"Merle gave me that knife! Right 'fore he went to juvie."

"Did you ever want to stab your father like that?"

"Sure," he answers. "But he weren't no pansy church elder. Bigger 'n me. Thought he'd kill me. Least 'til I's sixteen, then I thought I'd kill him. So I moved out 'fore I could."

"At sixteen?" Carol asks. "How did you manage that?"

"Been savin'. Already had a bike I'd fixed up from parts. Dropped out of high school. Took another job. Bought me a beat-up RV to live in. Rented a cheap campsite with hookups. Hunted for food sometimes so I'd still have a little money to spend on my girl. Merle came home when I's eighteen, on account of he got kicked out the army. And then we left town together, after my girl…you know."

"Where'd you go?" Carol asks.

"All over Georgia. Chasin' jobs. 'N evadin' Merle's creditors."

"What kind of jobs?"

"Ah…did a bit of everythin'. Loaded trucks. Dug ditches. Mucked stalls. Painted houses. Small household repairs. Fixed shit." He looks around her trailer. "Don't need Roland doin' that for ya. I can do it."

She smiles because he sounds a little jealous. "The one day a week you're here? I think I'd rather we spend the time differently."

His face twitches as if he's not sure whether to glower or smile at that response. In the end, he settles on a question. "How 'bout you? Know ya finished high school, then what?"

"I went to community college. It was all I could afford. I lived at home with my parents, worked part-time – "

"- Where?" he asks.

"Babysitting. And tutoring. I tutored junior high school kids in math."

"What ya study?" he asks. "In college?"

"I was studying to be a bookkeeper. But after my first semester, my father died. We found out he'd somehow let his life insurance policy lapse. There was no savings. My mother had never worked a day in her life and we couldn't pay the mortgage."

"So what y'all do?"

"We sold the house. But the market was in a rut. After the funeral bills and the mortgage, there was only enough left to put down a deposit on a two-bedroom apartment. So I dropped out of college. I took a full-time job at a day care center and kept babysitting and tutoring on evenings and weekends. Supported myself and my mom. I did that for four years. It was exhausting. And then there was Ed…." she says sarcastically, "To the rescue. He became the janitor at the building that housed the day care center. He had health care benefits through his job, and he'd inherited a small house and a little bit of money from his parents."

"Yer mama move with ya?"

"No. Ed wouldn't hear of that. She remarried. A widower from church. I guess he'd been pursuing her awhile, and she wasn't interested, but when I got engaged to Ed, and she knew I was leaving…" Carol sighs. "At least he was a decent man, her second husband. He was kind, just…homely. Not like my father. My father was a handsome man."

"Yeah?" Daryl asks. "That where ya get them beautiful eyes?"

She smiles. He doesn't say it like he's flirting – more like he's making a factual inquiry. "Yes." She looks into her glass, which still has a quarter of an ounce in it. "Thank you for bringing me this. I wanted to try it. But you don't have to leave me the whole bottle."

"Don't like it?"

She glances at his glass, which is empty again. "Not as much as you."

"I got whole 'nother bottle. Ya keep it. Trade it for what ya _do_ want."

"Thank you." She takes his empty glass, sets it on the coffee table, and then hands him her unfinished glass.

His fingertips graze hers as he takes it. He smirks. "Tryin' to get me drunk so ya can get in my pants?"

"Maybe I'm trying to get you drunk so you'll go down on me."

Daryl's smirk freezes on his face.

Her stomach sinks and she feels embarrassed for asking. She asked Ed once, when they were first married, before he'd started beating her, and he acted like she was some kind of filthy whore for asking. "You don't like doing that?" she guesses.

"Ain't that. Just…ain't done it much. Ain't been asked often."

"Well…." She can feel her own cheeks flushing pink. "I'm asking."

He drains the rest of her glass – which is mostly melted ice - and swallows hard.

"You don't have to worry about whether or not you're good at it," she reassures him, "because I've never done it before." She looks down at the brown industrial carpet on the trailer floor. " _Had_ it done. I won't know if it's good or bad."

"Think y'll know if 's bad."

She looks up again and offers him a small smile. "I don't think it will be."


	22. Chapter 22

"A'ight." Daryl sets the glass down on the coffee table and immediately slides to his knees between hers. Carol wasn't expecting him to do it right away, and a nervous but excited rush of heat jolts from her head to between her legs when he undoes the button on her jeans. "Ain't gonna work," he says.

"If you don't want - "

"- Nah, no, mean…this height ain't gonna work. Ya need to sit on the bed."

Even though she was the one to ask for it, Carol feels suddenly shy walking to the bed and taking off her jeans. Before she slides down her underwear, she asks, "Can you take some things off, too? So it's not just me?"

"Mhm. What?"

She reaches for the top button of his shirt. He puts a hand on each of her hips and watches her unbutton the shirt all the way down. Then he helps her slide it off. She tugs at the end of his white undershirt, and he complies by lifting it over his head. In the light of the oil lamp they've left burning on the night stand near the bed, she takes in every sinew of his chest and arms. God, he's beautiful.

She unbuckles his belt and starts to slide it loose, but realizes she can't with everything on it. "I got it," he says, and unbuttons and unzips and drops his pants with his knife and handgun still on the belt. The black boxers he has on underneath are slightly frayed in one leg, but it's the erection beginning to bulge against the flap that she notices most. He steps out of the pants and kicks them backward. "Yer turn. Shirt off."

Carol unbuttons and sheds her blouse in a pool on the floor below, revealing the lacy red bra she put on especially for tonight. "Damn," he murmurs, tracing the top of one cup, dipping his finger momentarily into her cleavage, and then tracing the top of the other cup, his breath deepening. "Leave that on. But take yer panties off."

Carol complies, sliding her red panties down to the floor and stepping out of them before sitting on the edge of the bed. The tingling between her legs is almost painful by the time he kneels down, slides one hand down her bare leg, and caresses her ankle. "One leg up," he orders. "Round my shoulders."

Carol, excited and embarrassed all at once, lies back on the bed, closes her eyes, and does what Daryl commands.

He taps her other leg gently. "Spread 'em for me." She lets her leg fall to the side.

She shudders when he starts by trailing kisses up one inner thigh. On the first stroke of his tongue she gasps and buries her fingers in his hair. On the second, she moans, jerks up, and instinctively tries to cinch her legs together to dull the sudden heat, crushing him in the process. He rears back.

"Sorry," she says. "Sorry I – "

"-S a'ight. Just can't breathe."

"I won't do it again. I promise."

Except she _does_ do it again, so he puts one strong palm on the leg that's hanging off the bed to hold it in place before returning his attention to her again.

She doesn't know if he's doing it right, but she sure as hell knows he's not doing it _wrong_. At least, not far wrong, and not for long. Sometimes he wanders from where the pleasure is, and with a hand on his head, she forces him back. And at one point it's a little too rough, and she murmurs, "Easy, easy," and then it's too light and she begs, "More, more…harder…please." But in the end she's tearing at his hair and crying out his name and God's name and she doesn't know what else. Daryl keeps going past her orgasm and it's too much…it's just too much…she's too sensitive now, and she roughly pushes his head away, with a palm on is forehead.

"Sorry," she says in response to his surprised look. "It's just…I'm good. I'm done."

"Mhmmm…good," he murmurs. He slides the leg that's wrapped around him off himself and sets her foot on the ground. "But I ain't done." As he stands, he takes her hands and pulls her up into a sitting position. Then he grabs one of the pillows, takes a step back from the bed, and drops it in on the floor. Why is he putting a pillow on the floor?

When he slides his boxers down to his knees, freeing his erection, she understands why. "My turn," he tells her. "Like ya did this mornin'. With the apple butter."

Panic seizes her gut. Why did she tease him like that with the apple butter? And why did she ask him to do what he just did? Of _course_ he'd want tit for tat. Of course he would. And she _knew_ that. But she didn't think it would matter. Not with Daryl.

And yet all she can think of right now is that time her gag reflux kicked in with Ed, and she actually threw up. He slapped her across the face and called her disgusting. It was the first time he'd ever hit her.

The memory drowns her confidence and she finds herself stammering, "I…I don't think I can….I'm not…I'm so bad at that, Daryl…I'm just…so very bad…I'm so sorry…I'm so …" Her voice cracks, and she swallows her next word.

Daryl yanks up his boxers. "Shhh…shhh…." He sits down beside her on the bed, draws her onto his lap, and wraps her up in his arms. She can feel his erection, subsiding but not quite gone, beneath her. "Shhh, sweetheart, shhh…" He kisses her chin, her lips, and then the tear that's sliding down her cheek. "'S a'ight. Ain't got to. Don't need to. A'ight? Carol, a'ight?"

She nods and swipes under her eyes to clear the next few tears.

"Ed?" he asks.

She nods silently.

"Wanna dig 'em up," Daryl growls. "Wanna kill 'em again."

"I'm sorry."

"No. Nah. _He's_ sorry. Sorry sonnabitch."

Carol feels her nakedness suddenly. "Can we get under the covers?"

"Yeah. 'Course."

When the sheet and heavy blankets are pressing down on her, she buries her face in his shoulder, and he wraps her up again in his arms.

A few more tears escape her, but she settles. She begins to relax. Her muscles unwind. Eventually she pulls away, lies on her side with her head on her hand, and picks at the flat sheet on the bed, not quite meeting his eyes. "I really am sorry," she says quietly. "I _want_ to reciprocate. It's just – "

"- Ain't got to 'splain. We'll get there, 'ventually. 'N if'n we don't…hell….ain't like I don't like regular sex, right?"

She sniffles and nods. "Maybe that high school boyfriend who dumped me was right. I'm too plain vanilla."

He puts an arm around her waist and draws her to him. "Well, 's Sunday…'n plain vanilla's the best damn thing to make a sundae, yeah?" He kisses her cheek. "Plain vanilla with a drizzle of sweet, sweet caramel syrup." He bends his head and kisses her bare shoulder. "'N rainbow sprinkles." He kisses her earlobe and whispers. "'N a cherry on top."

She lets out a relieved laugh.

"Ya love vanilla ice cream, don'tchya?" he asks.

"I do," she whispers. "I do love it. I love you, Daryl."

He sucks in his bottom lip, like he does sometimes when he's touched or speechless, and chews it.

"It's okay," she says. "You don't have to say it back. I just needed you to know." She kisses him gently, first on his forehead, then on his nose, and finally on his lips.

He kisses back more deeply. Soon, there's slow searching under the blankets, gentle caresses, and eager sighs. He pops the front clasp of the bra she's still wearing and fondles her lightly as their mouths meet.

Carol slides his boxers down when he's hard again, and Daryl rolls on top of her. "Open for me," he whispers, and she does. Her legs fall apart and he pushes in slowly, deliberately.

They set a steady, tender rhythm.

[*]

Carol's curled up all around him in the aftermath of love, and her naked flesh warms his. Daryl's eyelids feel like great weights as his hand slips from the back of her neck down to the small of her back. His body jerks.

"You're not going to sleep already are you?" she asks.

"Nhmhm-uh."

"Can we stay awake a little more? Have a little pillow talk?"

"Mhmhm….sure…."

"….morning….breakfast…."

"Mhmhm."

"…navigating that road on a dirt bike….Daryl?"

"Mhmmm."

"And Henry said….Daryl?"

"Mhmmm….Henry said that?"

"Well, when he….maybe next Sunday….think….Daryl?"

"Mhmhm. Yeah."

"And then...Saturday...Liam's wedding...no sense...sleep there...Daryl?

"Mhmhm."

The breath from her sigh is warm on his shoulder. "Goodnight, Pookie." Her soft lips touch down on his cheek, and that's the last sensation he remembers.

[*]

When Carol wakes up, Daryl is gone. She sits up anxiously. Sunlight is streaming in from every window. She checks the wind-up watch on her nightstand and sees it's already nine in the morning. She knows he wanted to be back at the Hilltop by the mid-afternoon to hunt for the community. Did he leave already? Without saying _goodbye_? Daryl wouldn't do that, would he?

An insecure panic grips her. What if, despite all his tenderness last night, he woke up in the early hours of the morning and started thinking about how difficult it might be, long-term, to have a relationship with an abused and damaged woman? A woman who breaks down when she's asked for something as ordinary as a blow job?

But then she hears him, the mutter of his deep voice – and his laugh – somewhere outside. Relief unwinding her tightened nerves, she flings back the blankets and dresses hastily before walking out onto the porch.

"Morning, Carol!" Khalid calls from the trailer across the gravely path between them. Daryl stands next to him, and they're both smoking. "I trust you slept _very_ well." He elbows Daryl playfully and Daryl gives him an irritated – but not entirely unfriendly – shove that causes Kahlid to stumble left two steps.

Daryl walks down the three stairs, takes one last drag of his cigarette, and grinds it out on the gravel before crossing over to Carol.

"I was half afraid you'd left already," she admits.

"You was sleepin'," he says. "Went out to take a piss, saw Zorro there smokin' when I got back."

She chuckles. "Zorro. Khalid would actually like that." She jerks her head toward the trailer. "Come on inside and I'll make you breakfast."

Daryl opens the door for her and then follows her inside.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N:** _FYI, if you're interested in reading one of my novellas, "Incomplete Pass" (by Molly Taggart) is on sale at Amazon for just 99 cents through August 23._

[*]

Carol draws down a mason jar of pears. "Sit down. I'll bring breakfast over."

Daryl takes a seat in one of the blue plastic student's chair at the table. "Henry ain't comin' over?"

"Not this morning. I haven't told him what we're up to, but I'm pretty sure he's figured it out and he's giving us space."

She sets the table with two plates and two glasses of water and one fork. She doesn't bother to give him a fork. He's just going to eat with his hands. Then she puts a few pear slices on each plate and a hardboiled egg – she had four stored in her small cooler and will get a ration of four more next week. Daryl cracks the egg and starts peeling it messily.

"Here, let me do that," she insists as she sits down opposite him. "You'll waste the meat at that rate."

Daryl hands it over and watches her expertly shed the shell and hand it back. As Carol unpeels her own egg, she asks, "So what did you and Khalid talk about?"

"Bacon grease."

" _Bacon grease_?" she asks.

"Was talkin' to 'em 'bout my bike, how much I miss it. Told me he was readin' 'bout folks buildin' a bike to run on bacon grease in some science magazine he picked up somewhere." He pats his vest to indicate the bulge where a rolled-up magazine rests in the inside pocket. "They never got it past the test phase 'fore the world ended, but they was onto somethin'."

"You really think that's possible?"

"If I built a new bike up from parts, maybe. Bike's got to be light. Skinny. Had a picture of the prototype. Sissy lookin' thing. Not cool like mine."

She cuts her egg in half with her fork. "Well, is this about _looking_ _cool_ or about powering a vehicle you don't have to pedal, spur, or stable?"

"Kind of wanna do both," he admits, and she laughs before shaking some salt on both open halves of her egg. The salt hasn't spoiled, at least. He looks at her pointedly. "Y'all the only one's got pigs."

"Pookie, we recycle our bacon grease. I use it for cooking oil as long as I can. But eventually it's no good for that, and we use it to make candles or lube for parts - wheels and pullies and guns. I'm not sure Ezekiel and the other advisors would approve of me giving it all away."

"Article said it only took 'em one pound of bacon grease to make a gallon, 'n one gallon goes over 75 miles. 'N the fumes'll smell like bacon, too."

"Well then you're taking me for a ride, for sure."

"Gonna get me the grease?" he asks excitedly.

"I'll bring it up at our next Advisory Meeting. Maybe Ezekiel will want us to donate a couple of pounds for the purposes of scientific research. He does like to be a royal patron of the arts and sciences. But the rest of the Advisors will probably want something in return."

"Just name it."

She nods to the bottle on her desk. "The rest of that might get you a pound of grease to experiment with. I'll see what I can do and let you know next week."

He grins and devours his hardboiled egg in two bites.

"What else did you talk about?" Carol asks.

"Wells. Pipes. Ideas Khalid's got for improved irrigation. Some shit we might try at the Hilltop. 'N Rosita."

"Khalid's pretty hung up on her."

"Yeah, well…ain't so sure she's hung up on 'em. He gave me a letter to take back to 'er." Daryl pulls the envelope, which is on top of the magazine, out of his inside jacket pocket to show her. "Damn thick. Must be eight pages."

"Maybe he wrote her poetry. He was a published poet."

"No shit?" Daryl asks as he slides the envelope back in his pocket.

"He actually published a book."

Daryl pops a piece of pear into his mouth, and, still chewing, asks, "Anyone buy it? 'Sides his mama?"

She chuckles. "I don't know how well it sold, but he won some award for it. He got a $10,000 cash prize."

"Probably spent it all on hookers."

"He's not like that."

"Fucked another man's girl, didn't he?" Daryl asks. "Behind his back." It's clear from Daryl's tone that he thinks that's a lot worse than going to hookers.

"Cassandra, you mean? When she was with Roland? Khalid didn't know she was. No one knew. Roland wasn't publishing it. When Cassandra came onto Khalid, he assumed she was available. When he and Roland found out she was sleeping with _both_ of them, Roland stepped aside. But that just created a vacancy as far as Cassandra was concerned….so she went for Avanaco, at which point Khalid broke it off. Too many cooks."

"Bet they all got the clap now," Daryl mutters.

"Rumor says otherwise. Apparently Cassandra was a straight-and-narrow pastor's wife before the apocalypse, and none of those three men are exactly playboys."

"A pastor's wife? No fuckin' way!"

"That's the rumor. I guess she got one taste of freedom after the world ended…I think Avanaco's hoping she'll work it out of her system and settle down soon. He's crazy about her for some reason. He asked her to put their union in the record book, which makes them married in the eyes of the Kingdom."

"Hell's that even mean?" Daryl asks. "Married in the eyes of the Kingdom?"

"Well, it clearly doesn't mean much to _her_."

"Tell me 'bout it. Tried to drag me in 'er room yesterday."

"What?" Carol asks sharply.

Daryl tells her about knocking on the wrong door and Cassandra's invitation and then pops his last slice of pear into his mouth.

Irritation flares up in Carol. She was amused – but slightly annoyed - when Cassandra hit on him at the banquet, but when Daryl didn't respond, she thought that would be the end of it. Cassandra didn't continue to pursue either Roland or Khalid when those men made their disinterest clear. "Tell me if she comes onto you again."

Daryl chews a little slower. He swallows and then smirks. "Why? Y'all gonna mud wrestle for me?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He chuckles.

"I'm not fighting over you, Daryl. If you ever decide you don't want me anymore, just tell me. Honestly. Don't lie to me. I'm not interesting in doing anything to _keep a man_ anymore. Just so you know."

"So this the last time yer ever gonna serve me breakfast?"

"No. Of course not."

"Was yesterday the last time yer ever gonna fuck my brains out?"

She smiles. "No."

"Mhm. Well. Sounds like yer interested in doin' _somethin'_."

She laughs. "You're not very high maintenance. I might be a little more high maintenance than you."

"Yeah?" Daryl sucks a bit of pear juice off his thumb. "Well I ain't writin' ya any damn poetry, just so _you_ know."

"I wasn't expecting any." She sips her water, sets it down, and says, "You know, these communities are really intertwining on the relationship front. You and me. Tara and Dianne. Liam and Enid. Rosita and Khalid. Roland…well, he might not have much luck there, but we'll see."

"Who's he bangin'?"

"He's not _banging_ anyone," Carol answers. "But he has an interest in Maggie."

" _Maggie_?"

"Why not? She's smart, strong, attractive, intelligent."

"Yeah, but she's….Glenn's."

"Glenn's gone, Daryl. He has been for three years. She ought to think about at least…I don't know. At least having some fun. Rumor is she's gotten pretty uptight. And I've noticed it myself, the few times I've been there to trade. She's thrown herself so deep into running the Hilltop…maybe so she doesn't have to think about what she's lost. And maybe so she has an excuse not to spend too much time with Glenn, Junior so he's not constantly reminding her of Glenn. Haven't you noticed it?"

"Looks just like 'em," Daryl agrees. "Call 'em mini-Glenn."

"I mean haven't you noticed how _wired_ Maggie is?"

He shrugs, sips his water, and sets it down. "Yeah…pain in my ass sometimes. But it ain't easy, keepin' that place goin', not with all the damn people we took in after the War with the Whispers, 'n the ones we've found since. She done a'ight by us. Ain't like Rick wasn't wound-up."

"Ezekiel's not."

"'Cause he's full of shit."

"Daryl."

"Sorry," he mutters.

"Ezekiel is a good leader. He's done well by us."

"Never said he ain't. But shouldn't he of dropped the damn Shakespeare routine by now?"

"He mostly has. But I think he got used to talking that way. You know, he was in community theater before all this. As a hobby, on top of the zookeeping."

Daryl chuffs. "That ain't hard to believe."

"No one calls him king anymore, not seriously."

"Didn't tell me ya was on his Council."

"I'm an advisor, yes," she says. "I assumed you knew."

"Ain't got no title? Vice Chancellor Carol?"

She chuckles. "No title." She polishes off a pear slice and then asks. "So, since you fell asleep on me last night – "

"- Sorry 'bout that."

"I was trying to make plans. I'm thinking the roads won't be navigable on that bicycle in parts of winter."

"Just take a horse 'til I build that motorcycle. Maggie wouldn't let me this weekend 'cause of an Oceanside trade trip."

"Okay. Next Sunday you'll visit the Kingdom. But the Sunday after that, falconry lessons are off because of Enid and Liam's Saturday wedding at the Hilltop. I'm planning to go to the wedding. Henry's coming with me. I was wondering about sleeping arrangements?"

"Ain't ya gonna sleep with me?" he asks with alarm. "Mean, know my digs ain't as nice as yers, but – "

"- Of course I'm going to sleep with you. But what about Henry?"

"Likely put a bunch of people in sleepin' bags in the foyer of the big house. Henry can camp out there. 'Less'n he wants to sleep with the Howell twins." Daryl smirks.

"Those fifteen-year-old girls Aaron and Jesus found living alone on the Pamunkey reservation?"

"Yeah. Got their own trailer."

"I don't think that's the best idea."

Daryl chuckles. "Bet ya Henry'll think it's the best idea."

"Stop," she warns. "Although…anything to get him off this Rachel kick. I can't stand that girl. I bet if he saw her more than twice a month, he'd get over her."

"Think maybe Elizabeth'll help 'em get over 'er."

"What's that mean?"

Daryl takes a slow sip of his water and looks away at the desk.

"Daryl?"

"Nothin'!" he insists, flitting his eyes back. "Just…saw 'em at the lesson. 'N she told 'em he should forget 'bout Rachel and think 'bout an older girl."

"I like Elizabeth, and I could see that happening someday, but she's _seventeen_. She's much too old for him at _this point_."

"He ain't a little boy no more, Carol."

"Well Elizabeth needs to slow her roll," Carol says grumpily. The idea unsettles her. She had the birds and bees talk with Henry when he was twelve and she realized no one had done so yet, but he hadn't yet gone through puberty. The information she conveyed was all very dry and biological. They haven't touched on the subject since. "He's too young still."

Daryl changes the subject. "Yer gonna be back on the tradin' team, right?"

"Yes, but we're off our normal schedule because of that special trip Roland made. And we'll likely trade when we come for Enid and Liam's wedding. So we probably won't make a trade trip again until mid-December. But that means you and I will get an extra day together that month, a Wednesday to add to our Sundays."

"Like the sound of that."

She thinks this whole thing would be easier if he'd just move to the Kingdom, but she doesn't say that. He has duties at the Hilltop. He's a Councilman, Maggie's right hand, and the primary hunter, though Liam should alleviate his burden there a little. He's also Judith's godfather, and he has friends there, a family, really. Just like she does here. Maybe Carol will bring up the idea around Christmas, before the snows fall and travel becomes difficult.

They finish up their breakfast together, and she goes with him to collect letters from Liam and Dianne for Enid and Tara before walking him to the gate. Carol hugs him a long time, and eventually Daryl has to slide her arms off from around his neck. "Gotta get goin'," he tells her. "Got to hunt back home."

 _Back home_. They used to have _one_ home. That's her fault, though, isn't it? That they don't anymore. She was the one to leave her first family for this new one.

She watches him pedal off down the dirt road, one hand half-raised in farewell.

[*]

Cassandra is sitting on a picnic bench and scrubbing laundry on a washboard in a bucket near the drainage gutters when Carol finds her. A pair of soapy off-white boxers slide over the metal – Avanaco's most likely.

Carol draws to a stop at the left of the bucket and rests a hand on the hilt of her gutting knife.

"Hey, Carol," Cassandra says, "How are the treats for Liam's wedding coming along? Are you going to need any extra hands to help assemble them?"

"Probably. Listen. Did you invite Daryl into your bedroom yesterday?"

Cassandra stops scrubbing and her face morphs into a mask of innocence. She blinks her thick eyelashes over her green eyes "Where did you hear that?"

"From Daryl."

Cassandra drops the act. "Really? He actually _told_ you that?"

"Yeah. He _told_ me that. He tells me things. Because we're… _together_."

"I see." Cassandra begins scrubbing again.

"You have a husband. I don't see why you need to be coming onto other women's…" What does she call Daryl? "Men."

"I was just having a lark, Carol."

"Yeah, well stop. Stop having larks. At least, not with Daryl. Am I understood?"

Cassandra looks up from the wash bucket. "Loud and clear." She smiles. "I've never seen you so territorial. Is he _that_ good in bed?"

"He's just that _good_. _Period_." Carol lets go of her tight grip on the hilt of her knife as she walks off.

It's not until later that afternoon, when she's helping to prepare dinner, and she runs back to her trailer to get some spices she's left in her desk pantry, that she finds the note. The folded notebook paper peeks out from underneath the bottle of whiskey Daryl left behind. He must have written it when she went to the outhouse after breakfast.

She slides the paper out and unfolds it.

 _Dear Carol,_

 _I love you too._

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Daryl_

 _P.S. Don't forget my bacon graese._

There's a rough sketch of a pig at the bottom of the note, with a curly tail and a big snot nose, saying, _Oink. Oink_. And underneath it, he's written - _Vroom!_


	24. Chapter 24

Daryl's relaxed from his Sunday with Carol when he sinks into the woods by the Hilltop on late Monday afternoon, after the long bike ride home. He finds it easy to concentrate and returns after sunset with a ten-point buck. But tonight they've already slaughtered and cooked a goat that is past child bearing age and is no longer giving milk, and Andy and Lisa have added the meat of two pheasants to the dinner offerings. The fishers have returned from the freshwater stream with three bass. It's the fish Daryl receives – three ounces lightly fried in cornmeal, with a side of creamed corn and another of creamed spinach. The cooks love to cream things around here, because the eight dairy goats – seven, now - and the two dairy cows are among their main sources of protein.

He sits on a wooden bench near one of the fire pits and hungrily eats the now lukewarm meal that's been held aside for him. The fire pit is also near the butcher's table, lending light to Sharon as she cuts the buck apart. He field dresses the animals on the spot, but she butchers them. The meat will be salted and hung in the smoke house to be preserved for winter, when game is more scarce.

"Did you have a good time with Carol yesterday?" she asks.

"Mhmhm." Daryl digs his spoon into the creamed corn.

"I didn't realize you had a girlfriend until recently. How long have you two been together?"

"Umm…been…dunno."

"You don't _know_?" she asks as her cleaver comes down with a whack on the table.

"Mean…been friends a long time. Only been – " He was about to say _fucking_. "She's only been my…girl…a couple weeks." He can call Carol his girl, he thinks. She said she loved him, after all, and he said – or at least wrote - it back. He's pretty sure that makes her his girl.

"Oh. Well, I certainly hope we don't lose you to the Kingdom."

Daryl slows in his chewing and looks up from his plate.

"Judith sure would miss you," Sharon continues. "And so would a lot of other people. At least…" She smiles. "They'd miss the meat."

Daryl's not sure what to say that. Moving to the Kingdom has never occurred to him. Sure, he'd like to see Carol more than once a week, but the Hilltop is home. The Kingdom is…strange. It's like the rich kids' table in the junior high school cafeteria. They might not chase you off if you sit at the end, but you just know they're secretly talking about your onion and miracle whip sandwich.

"Roland ain't bangin' no one," he says. It's an abrupt and random statement, but somehow it made sense to him before all the words were out. He needs to change the subject, and he needs to give Sharon someone else to be interested in.

"Excuse me?" she asks.

"Roland. Liam's dad. One came here last week. Won the gold in the rings at the festival."

"The guy who looks a little like Cary Grant?"

"Mhmhm. Yeah. He ain't with no one."

"Well, thank you for the tip, but I got the impression he might be interested in Maggie. And, besides, he's way out of my league."

Daryl tries not to feel insulted, but if Carol is right and Sharon _was_ trying to fuck _him_ , that's like saying she thinks he's in a way lower league than Roland. "Roland ain't all that," Daryl insists. "Can't shoot a gun that well. Doesn't hunt much. 'N that cleft chin y'all girl's so crazy 'bout – 's just a birth defect, ya know."

"If you think so little of him, why are you trying to fix me up with him? Or do you think that little of me?"

"Uh…."

She laughs and shakes her head. "You're a strange cookie, Daryl Dixon." Her cleaver slams down on the table, and she works the blade out of the meat. "Don't worry about me. I'll be just fine. I've got a date with Aaron Thursday afternoon anyway."

"Uhmhm…Aaron?"

"Yes, I _know_. But sometimes a girl just needs someone to go on a horseback ride and have a picnic with. And maybe a hug."

Daryl wonders how Katrina - the woman Aaron says has been trying to "turn him" – is going to feel about this Aaron and Sharon _date_. He suddenly feels sorry for the six single women who live at the Hilltop. Too many men were lost in the last war. Not counting Daryl, there are only four unmarried men here. Two of them are gay, one is seventy, and the fourth, according to Rosita, sucks in bed. Not that Eduardo has had any trouble finding beds to climb into.

"Well, have fun," Daryl mutters before he licks his fingers clean and drops his plate in the cleaning trough – it's not his job to scrub it – and returns to his tent. Later, he's sitting on the planks, his legs hung over the side, and studying the science magazine article about bio-fuel by the light of the fire in the oil barrel when Rosita stops by and sits down beside him. He shuts the magazine hastily.

"Girly mag?" she asks. "You should put the flaps of your tent down when you're looking at that."

He glowers and turns the magazine toward her to reveal the cover.

"Didn't take you for a science geek," she says.

"Gonna try to build a bike can run on bacon grease."

She laughs. "Sure. When pigs fly."

"They got a prototype to work. Sort of." He tosses the magazine aside.

"Well, maybe Eugene can help you," she suggests. "He's full of shit about a lot of stuff he claims to know, but…he's actually pretty clever. And he's been studying all those engineering textbooks."

"Yeah, might hit 'em up," Daryl mutters, though he's really not looking forward to working with Eugene.

She holds up a fistful of papers. "Khalid wrote me six fucking pages of _poetry_."

Daryl slides back on the platform and gets up to sit on his camp chair, where he begins to unlace his boots. "Carol said he had a book. 'N the old world. Won $10,000 for it. 'S more than I made in four months workin' some years."

"Who bought _poetry_ in the old world?"

"Pretentious assholes, mostly." Daryl unlaces his other boot. "'N maybe a few people who just like poetry."

"It's actually not bad," Rosita admits. She draws one leg up on the platform and bends it as she turns to face him. "Is Khalid fucking Cassandra, do you know?"

"Thought ya weren't interested in nothin' serious with 'em?"

"I'm _not_. But I'm interested in not catching anything nasty."

"Carol says he ain't. Stopped when she got with Avacado."

"Avanaco, you mean?" Rosita asks.

"Whatever." He yanks off his left boot and tosses it under his cot. "Could just ask 'em instead of me."

"Then he'll think I'm serious and that I want to be exclusive."

Daryl yanks off his other boot. "Who the hell else ya fuckin' anyhow?" If there was someone else, he's pretty sure he'd already know about it, the way she runs her mouth to him. He asked her once why she told him so much. She answered, _Because you're as silent as the grave._

"No one. I just don't want him to think this is going to turn into a long-term thing." She holds up the papers. "He wrote me _poetry_ , Daryl!"

"So what? So he likes ya. 'S a fuckin' crime to like ya?"

Rosita lowers the papers and seems to consider his words. She folds up the poems and shoves them back into the inside pocket of her leather coat.

"Why don't ya just give 'em a chance?"

"Because giving a guy a chance has never worked out well for me," she says coolly. "It's better not to get too attached. If you fall in love with them, they leave you. Or they get killed. Or sometimes _both_ in under a month."

"Yeah? Think Maggie would go back and un-love Glenn?"

Rosita slides off the platform and stands up. "When did you become Dr. Phil?"

"Why do people keep sayin' that?" Daryl calls after her as she walks away.

When she doesn't answer, he sighs and pulls down the flaps of his tent. The flames from the fire outside flicker in shadows on the canvas. It will die out within the hour, safely contained within the barrel, and by then he'll be asleep and not feel the fall night cold.

He reads that article again and studies the included labeled diagram of the engine. Then he drops his pants and unbuttons his overshirt and, in his boxers and undershirt, throws himself onto his cot before turning down the lamp and pulling a heavy blanket over himself. He thinks of pigs and motorcycles, but eventually his thoughts turn to Carol. And after he's been thinking about Carol for a while, he slides his hand down inside his boxers.

[*]

Daryl's less relaxed on Tuesday. His mind keeps drifting to Carol, and after spending from sunrise until noon in the woods, he returns with only a medium-sized fox and three squirrels. Andy and Lisa have emerged almost empty-handed from their neck of the woods: they have only a single snake. The fishers have caught no fish today – the water is getting colder in the stream and the fish are beginning to descend – but the Hilltop still has two dozen smoked fish Jesus brought back from his trade trip to Oceanside. They're saving that for winter, however.

The cooks agree to make a mixed-meat stew, heavily padded with corn, cabbage, and carrots, to feed the community for dinner. But there's green salad for lunch, with corn and tomatoes, sprinkled with some goat cheese for protein. Daryl chokes it down. He prefers all his vegetables fried in animal fats.

After depositing his kill at the butcher's table and eating lunch, Daryl takes his dirt bike outside the gates and rides it to a junkyard about two miles away, where he searches for parts for his bike. Some he sets aside in a pile to fetch later, but what he can he straps to the rack on his bike and shoves in his pack. It's quiet on the road, and he only sees one walker, which he doesn't bother to stop to kill.

When he returns, it's already dinner time, and Father Gabriel is saying the grace. He settles at a picnic table with Judith, Gracie, and Aaron and scarfs his stew down.

"It's not a race," Judith tells him.

"Need to work on my bike," he tells her.

She frowns. "It's Tuesday! You promised you'd play Candy Land!"

"Aww….yeah."

Daryl stacks the deck so Judith wins in just three moves, but then she demands another game. He doesn't escape the library of the mansion for an hour, and it's dark when he gets back to his tent. He tinkers by fire light, hammering parts apart on the floor of his tent, until the man in the platform tent across the way pops his head out and says, "Hey, Daryl! Could you maybe stop all that racket? It's midnight. My wife can't sleep."

[*]

Daryl finds if he keeps himself busy, he doesn't miss Carol so much. So he spends all morning teaching Andy and Lisa to track bear. They don't find a bear, but they find a half-prepared den, being readied for hibernation, and note its location.

"Come back here in late February," Daryl tells them. "By then she'll have had her cubs 'n they'll be least a month old. Get 'em all at once while they's still hibernatin'. Lots of meat."

"How do you know it's pregnant?" Andy asked.

"Seen it. Just ain't killed it yet. Wait 'til the cubs're born 'n grow a bit."

Daryl's gotten used to hunting by his own rules instead of the Georgia hunting laws he once honored. The world has changed. There's no excess of hunters now, no reason to regulate the hunt. Walkers can't hunt, and they're too slow to chase down a healthy animal. They feast only on the wounded or recently dead. As a consequence, animals are multiplying. It won't be long before the deer become a nuisance to the crops and the bears a threat to people, Daryl thinks. Next fall probably. They can never kill too many or too young. The woods have been hopping with deer this fall, which is why he's not overly concerned about storing up meat for the long winter. In fact, they manage to get a medium-sized doe before they head back to the Hilltop.

After the hunt, Daryl returns to the junkyard to haul back the last of his parts, tinkers for an hour, and then heads to the communal dinner.

The Council convenes for its normal weekly meeting after dinner. "Egg production is down," Maggie reports. "Because we lent out that chicken for insemination and it's turning colder. By December, I think we should expect half the amount of eggs as usual. Milk production is also starting to decline and unfortunately we're going to have to let Billy Jean dry up. I don't expect her to breed again, so we might as well eat her this winter. That'll bring us down to just the billy and six nannies but the five kids should be big enough to breed and milk by next fall, and Snowball is pregnant again." She looks directly at Daryl. "We _need_ to store up meat for the winter, before the animals go into hiding and hunting is more difficult."

"Ain't gonna be a problem," Daryl insists. "Still got that buck smokin'."

"That's only two days of meat at five or six ounces each," Maggie reminds him.

"Gonna get at least two deer a week for the next five weeks, easy. Andy n' Lisa might snag some. 'N Liam'll be here in less 'n two weeks. Get us a shit load of birds."

"When will the bunnies in the bunny farm be big enough to eat?" Aaron asks.

"They won't be full grown until July of next year," Maggie answers. "But we can start in on them early if we're desperate. We need to hold aside two does and a buck for future breeding, though."

"Oceanside will give us more dried fished in exchange for whiskey at the December trade meeting," Father Gabriel notes. He smiles. "And we could always become vegetarians, like Adam and Eve were before the Fall."

"That might have been easy enough in the old world," Maggie replies, "but we don't have that much in the way of beans or nuts. And we have children with growing brains."

"I for one, am _not_ living on salads," Rosita insists.

Aaron looks at her and shakes his head. "I don't know where you put it."

There are more reports made and further discussions. Maggie passes around a trade proposal for when the Kingdom arrives the week after next for Liam and Enid's wedding, and it's unanimously approved.

Daryl returns to his tent to tinker with his motorcycle parts, his mind drifting to Carol so often that he accidentally cuts his lower arm on a sharp piece of metal. "Shit!" he mutters, and goes to Siddiq to get cleaned up with alcohol, treated with topical antibiotic, and wrapped with gauze.

Siddiq smiles as he tapes the gauze in place. "Times are improving," he says. "You wouldn't even have bothered to see me about this a year ago."


	25. Chapter 25

Daryl manages to bag another deer on Thursday for winter storage in the smokehouse and makes some progress on his bike after consulting Eugene. He stops by the study to make sure there will be a horse for hm to sign out this Sunday. "'Cause 'm takin' Judith, too. To see 'er friend. 'Livia."

Maggie tells him he can take Snowball and then goes back to the inventory papers spread out over her desk.

"Ya need a break," he tells her.

"I have to make sure we have adequate rations for the winter." She looks about at the papers and shakes her head. "I can't _take a break_ and keep up with all this."

"Delegate some of this shit."

" _You_ want to sit down and run the numbers?" she asks.

"Didn't mean _me_ , but Aaron'd be great at that. Used to distribute supplies for some charity or some shit, 'fore all this."

"An NGO. In the Niger River Delta," she agrees. She looks at the papers scattered all over the desk. "And you're right. He probably would be good at this part. Maybe I should hand it over and take a nap with Glenn, Jr."

"'S why there's a Council."

She sighs and leans back in her chair. "I know there's a Council, but when things go wrong, it's _me_ they blame. Not the Council. I don't know how Rick did it. He bore the weight of leadership in way worse conditions than this. And I think of all the decisions he made that _I_ resented him for…" She shakes her head. "People are going to resent me if I don't make the right decisions."

"Yeah, Rick made some bad calls. Made some good calls, too. 'N we forgave 'em the bad ones."

"Did you?" Maggie asks. "Did you ever _really_ forgive him for banishing Carol from the prison?"

Daryl's nostrils flare instinctively.

"And yet look at how that turned out. If she hadn't been banished...she'd have been right there with us at Terminus, instead of saving us. We'd all be dead. And the worst decision I ever thought Rick made – the one _I_ resented him the most for – keeping Negan alive - it turned out to be the right one in the end. All these communities would be destroyed if not for Negan figuring out how to defeat the Whisperers. How could Rick have _known_ all that would happen?"

"He _didn't_ know."

Maggie leans forward on her desk. "What don't _I_ know? What am I doing that might have consequences in the future, way beyond what I know?"

Daryl pulls out the chair across from her and sits down. "Ya take too much on yerself. Yer doin' the best ya can, and ya done a damn good job. Just keep consultin' people. Delegate more."

She laughs wearily. "There are so many people here, Daryl. So many who depends on us."

"Yeah. On _us_. Not just _you_. Ya ain't in this alone. Take a goddamn break, woman! Maybe get yerself laid. Spend more time with yer boy, and 'member what all this is _for_."

Maggie shuffles all her scattered papers together. "Thanks, Dr. Phil."

"Who the _fuck_ is Dr. Phil?"

[*]

Daryl finds Aaron playing chess with Sharon at one of the picnic tables. It's seems their "date" has continued past the picnic. Sharon smiles at Aaron mischievously when he lets go of his hand on the piece he's just moved.

Aaron looks at the smile. "I sense I just did something inadvisable."

She picks up a piece, moves it, and says, "Check," and Aaron sighs.

Daryl drops a folder full of papers beside the chess board. "Maggie wants ya to figure out how to make the vegetables stretch over the next four months," he says. "Run the numbers 'n present yer plan at the next Council meeting."

Aaron glances at the manila folder. "Uh…okay."

"Yer gonna do the same think with the meat in December, when we know how much we got in the smokehouse. Stretch it through March."

Aaron flips open the folder, looks at the papers inside, and flips it shut again. "I'll start in on it later tonight."

[*]

At dinner, the Bowman brothers, who are twelve and fourteen, keep chuckling and saying, "We're eating beaver," because that's what Andy and Lisa brought back. Daryl's deer is smoking for the winter.

"Shut up," one of the Howell twin girls tells them. "It wasn't even funny the first time."

"What's funny about eating beaver?" Judith asks Daryl.

"Nothin'," he tells her, and of course his mind goes straight to Carol again, to the way she pushed his head away because she couldn't take the sensation anymore, and to how he'd like to make her do that again.

"I packed my toothbrush!" Judith says excitedly.

"What?" Daryl asks her.

"I packed my toothbrush! For my sleepover with Olivia."

"Don't ya think maybe yer gonna need that 'fore Sunday?"

Judith shrugs.

[*]

That night on watch, Rosita demands to be entertained. When Daryl doesn't assist her with a joke or a riddle, instead of walking to the other end of the platform on the fence, she says, "Khalid's cocky."

"Mhm. Yeah. So're ya."

"What?" Rosita puts a hand on her hip and gives him her trademark head bob.

He just looks at her like she ought to know what he means, and she drops the topic. She paces to the edge of the fence and then paces back. "He's decent with that sword, don't you think?"

"Got the silver medal," Daryl agrees.

"I didn't work with him in the war, but I hear he was pretty bad ass. From what others say."

"Mhmhm."

"And he's disciplined. _Very_ reliable about pulling out."

"Don't need to know these details." Daryl begins to walk away along the platform.

"What are you and Carol doing to make sure she doesn't get pregnant?" Rosita calls after him.

Daryl pauses. He turns and walks back quickly, looking around to see who's near the fence, because she's _loud_. "Shh!" he says.

"Like everyone doesn't already know you're doing it."

He looks left at the camp, then back it her. "She can't. She's fifty. Or fifty-one. Somethin' like that."

"Oh yeah. I always forget how _old_ you two are."

"Ain't _old_!" he says.

"You're going to be over-the-hill, Daryl, in less than five years. Things are going to start to decline." She raises a finger and then makes it droop.

"Ain't nothin' declinin' in that department!"

She laughs. "You know, my mother was the baby of the family. The surprise child. My grandmother was fifty when she got pregnant with my mother. It can still happen."

"Well, Carol said it can't. For 'er."

"I guess she should know."

Horse hooves thunder toward the Hilltop, and Daryl's heart thuds in his chest in instinctive anticipation of an enemy. In an instant, his bow flies off his shoulder and into his hands. Rosita raises her binoculars and says, "Pony express."

Daryl relaxes. The rider comes into view, a woman from Oceanside, who used to run a horse-riding camp for girls in the old world. She's delivering mail from Oceanside, but will have passed through the Kingdom on the way and picked up any messages there. She'll stay the night, feed and rest her horse, and then make the journey home, passing once again through the Kingdom.

[*]

An hour later, when Daryl is off watch and returns to his tent, and sets his oil lamp down on his little table, he finds an envelope on his cot. He snatches it up, unties the flaps of his tent, and lets them fall free to close himself in. Then he plops down in his red canvas camp chair.

The address portion of the envelope reads _To: Daryl Dixon, Hilltop, Platform Tent 2._

The return address portion reads: _From: Carol Flanagan, Kingdom, Trailer 6._

Flanagan? He thought it was Peletier. Daryl grits his teeth when he realizes that, of course, Peletier was _Ed's_ name. Flanagan must be her father's name - the handsome father who died of a heart attack when she was nineteen and left no life insurance. _If you'd just paid up your plan, you cheap bastard_ , Daryl thinks, _she'd of stayed in college and never met Ed_.

Not that his mama had life insurance when she burned up and Daryl was only eleven. Neither did his father, who kicked the bucket of alcohol poisoning when Daryl was twenty-three. He and Merle found out about their father's death six months after the fact, when they ran into someone from their hometown on a job. They came back to see what was left to inherit and found their cousin Daisy Mae living in the trailer, claiming not to know where any of Will Dixon's guns were. Merle accused her of selling them all and pocketing the money, and then demanded that Daisy Mae pay them rent if she was going to stay in the trailer.

Daisy Mae said, "Fuck you, assholes! Where were you when I buried my mama alone last year? And then buried her brother - _your_ daddy – alone six months later? Where you been the last four years? Trailer's _mine_."

"Yeah, really?" Merle asked. "'Cause unless there was a will leavin' it to ya, _we're_ next of kin!"

"Don't need no damn will!" she cried. "Possession's nine tenths of the law."

"Now that's bullshit!" Merle shouted back.

Daryl could tell Merle wanted to throw her against that trailer wall, but he couldn't, because she was a girl, and a scrawny one at that, about a third his size and younger even than Daryl. Twenty in fact. Twenty and with no living parents. "Jesus, Merle," he muttered. "Just let her have it. We don't want to stick 'round here anyhow."

"She can mail us the rent checks!"

"Let's sell it to 'er." Daryl turned to his cousin. "Give us a hundred dollars, 'n it's yers."

"A hundred dollars?" Merle roared. "For a whole fuckin' goddamn trailer? She owes us at least eighteen hundred for the guns she pawned! And where's my daddy's bike! You sell that too, you dumb bitch?"

"It's 'round back," she replied. "But it's the only transport I got!"

Daryl put a hand on his brother's arm and led him down the trailer steps, where with bent head he hissed, "She's an orphan, man! Ain't got shit. 'N she can't pick up jobs easy like us. Only one kind of job she can pick up easy, and ya don't want 'er doin' that. Ya know what I'm sayin'."

Merle growled and shook his head, but in the end he agreed to let her pay four hundred dollars for the trailer _and_ the motorcycle _and_ the guns she'd already pawned, which Daisy Mae hemmed and hawed about paying, so Daryl had to draw _her_ aside too. "Look, Merle's gonna fight ya for _all_ of it if ya don't agree to this. Take the deal while ya still can."

She did. The brothers moved on again. Merle gave Daryl one hundred of the four hundred and kept the other three, "Because you're a shit negotiator, little brother."

Shaking off the memory, Daryl flicks open his pocket knife and cuts the envelope along the flap.

 _Dear Daryl,_

 _I found your note. Thank you for leaving it. I guess maybe it's easier for you to write some things than to say them, and that's fine by me. I think I already knew, or at least I should have, because you've shown me. Again and again, you've shown me, but especially on Sunday, when you were as understanding as you were about…all that. I can't tell you how much that meant to me._

 _Henry got in a big fight yesterday with Cayden. Apparently Cayden said something about Elizabeth that Henry found offensive, and Henry got angry and hit him. They both ended up with a broken nose. Ezekiel says since they can't get along, they can't live together anymore. Cayden's been moved out of the barracks and into the school. It's just Matt and Jake and Henry now, and they all get along just fine._

 _I'm glad Henry stood up for Elizabeth, and that he stands up for what he believes is right, but I'm trying to teach him not to be so hotheaded, so physical. He needs to learn to turn the other cheek sometimes and use his words instead of his fists or his staff. He's going to get himself in real trouble one of these days._

 _I love you and miss you and I'm really looking forward to you being in the Kingdom on Sunday. Who knows, you might make friends here besides just me. Ezekiel says he's going to try to talk you into playing Trivial Pursuit this time. Olivia won't stop talking about Judith coming to see her. She's got big plans for them._

 _You don't have to write back, but I'd like it if you did. It doesn't have to be a long letter. A few lines is all I ask. It's just nice knowing you're alive and well and thinking of me, too._

 _Love,_

 _Carol_


	26. Chapter 26

Carol is on watch early Friday afternoon when the pony express thunders through the gates of the Kingdom. She comes down from the platform, telling her watch partner that she's quitting her shift ten minutes early. The man shrugs.

"I'll take care of delivering those," she tells Ellen as the Oceanside woman draws the letters from her satchel. "You get your horse tended to and have something to eat."

Carol walks towards the courtyard, paging through the envelopes. On top is a letter from Enid to Liam. She flips that envelope behind the next to find one from Tara to Dianne. To her surprise and amusement, the next envelope is addressed from Maggie to Roland. She wonders if that's business related or _personal_. She's guessing personal, because there's also one from Maggie to Ezekiel, which should cover any business. Maybe Roland sent something Maggie's way, and she's just politely replying. Or maybe the man actually has a chance. Of course, their communication could also pertain to plans for Liam and Enid's wedding.

She comes across an envelope addressed from Jesus to his man at Oceanside. Somehow, that got mixed in with the Hilltop mail, and she'll have to return it to the satchel. Next is a letter to Olivia from Judith. Given that Judith isn't old enough to be writing, Carol suspects someone has been taking dictation.

There are only two more envelopes to go. When she flips Judith's letter to the back, she hopes to see Daryl's handwriting on the outside of the next envelope, but it's a letter to Khalid. From _Rostia_ no less. Not realizing she's holding her breath, Carol lifts Rosita's envelope to look at the last letter in the stack. _Form Daryl Dixon_ , the return address section reads. _Platform Tent 2, Hilltop._ Carol smiles.

She drops off the other letters quickly. She's crouched down and about to slip Khalid's under his trailer door when it abruptly flies open. He stands with rapier drawn and looks down at her. She rises cautiously and takes a step back, the envelope still in her hand. "Mail delivery," she says.

"Oh. I thought it was that damn raccoon." He sheathes his rapier.

"In the afternoon?"

He shrugs and takes the envelope and a dimple breaks out on his brown-skinned cheek. "Well damn. She actually wrote back." He pinches the envelope and sighs. " _One_ page."

"Happy reading," Carol tells him, and soon she's in her own trailer with her feet up on the coffee table and Daryl's envelope ripped impatiently open.

 _Dear Carol,_

 _Flannagan, huh? You Irish?_

 _Listen, abuot Henry - I know you got your job to do as a mama._

 _And your a good mama._

 _But Henry's got to fight._

 _He don't, they'll eat him alive._

 _So don't be too hard on him when he dose._

 _Just the way boys are._

 _If he can hold his own, he'll be all rite._

 _He's a good kid. Better since you got hold of him._

 _Used to be a little dumbass. Fixing to be a man soon._

 _Won't need you at the Kingdom one day._

 _No you don't want to hear that. But its true._

 _You've done good by him. That's why he won't need you one day._

 _Not much to report here._

 _Got me a buck. 10 pointer. And a doe. Smoking them for winter._

 _Building that bike. Hope you got me my bacon graese._

 _I'll have to refine it._

 _Little Ass Kicker made me play Candy Land 5 times this week._

 _I hate that damn game._

 _Been thinking abuot you._

 _About licking my vanilla ice cream all up._

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Daryl_

Carol smiles and tucks the first page of the letter behind the second page. On the second page, he's drawn a heart. Through the heart is an arrow. He's drawn an arrow to the arrow and written – _Metal crossbow bolt. This kind don't bend_. And inside the heart, he's written – _Daryl + Carol._

Carol laughs, sniffs, and reads the letter again.

[*]

At the Friday evening gathering of the Advisors in the school library, where Ezekiel and his council sit around a wooden, circular table, Carol proposes giving Daryl two pounds of the bacon grease she's held aside.

"Don't we need that for cooking?" Nabila asks.

"Or to make candles?" Jerry asks. "After it's not edible anymore?"

"I sure could use it for lube," Roland says. "Khalid told me the pullies for the bucket in the southwest well are sticking."

"It would just be two pounds," Carol insists. "And he's bringing an entire bottle of whiskey in exchange." She doesn't yet offer up _her_ bottle, which still sits mostly full on her desk, but she will if need be.

"I wouldn't mind a nip of whiskey," Dianne admits.

"I don't understand why anyone values alcohol," Nabila says. "It has no nutritional value."

"It does have medical uses," Jerry tells her.

"I don't think you were _medicating_ yourself with that mead last night," she replies with a raised eyebrow.

He grins. "Hey, last night was _my_ Friday night! I had today off from hunting."

Nabila shakes her head.

"It would be for the purpose of scientific experimentation," Carol insists. "If Daryl makes a breakthrough on this biofuel, if he actually builds a bike that can run on it, that could have ramifications for the future of all our communities."

Roland rolls his blue plastic chair closer to the table and lays an arm down. "No offense intended, Carol, but I wasn't aware Daryl had a background in the sciences."

"He doesn't. But he's clever. He's tinkered with bikes his entire life. And he has Eugene to consult."

"Eugene?" Roland asks. "I heard he pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, that he doesn't really know anything. That he _pretended_ to be a scientist to survive."

"He _did_ pretend to be a scientist to survive," Carol admits. "But he _does_ know some things. And he's been teaching himself more." She looks around the table. "Come on. It's just _two pounds_. If it doesn't work, we'll still learn from it."

"All in favor of trading two pounds of bacon grease to Daryl Dixon for a bottle of whiskey?" Ezekiel asks.

Grinning, Jerry raises his hand. Dianne follows, and of course Carol. Nabila sighs. Then she flicks her wrist up. "I'm just voting for young love," she says with a smile cast in Carol's direction.

"Roland?" Ezekiel asks. "You still have objections?"

"Grease has more practical uses for us than whiskey. But…if something _does_ come of it..." Slowly, he raises his hand.

[*]

Daryl waits as long as he can to go in the mansion and get Little Ass Kicker for their Sunday morning journey to the Kingdom. He busies himself by packing and repacking his bag, counting his arrows, checking his handgun, sliding out the magazine, ejecting the bullets, counting them, and then putting them back in.

And still the sun hasn't risen.

So he goes to the barn to saddle the horse he'll be taking. A lantern glows inside, because the stable boy – Jose, who is about fifteen – has already begun his morning work. The young man helps Daryl to prepare the horse. "You have a safe journey, sir," Jose says.

Daryl still isn't fully accustomed to all the young men who seem to admire him and call him _sir_ , but he doesn't correct them when they do it. He doesn't say, "Just call me Daryl." Because, secretly, he _likes_ it.

Patrick was the first person in his life to ever call him _sir_ , and the prison was the first place he ever began to believe that he might be able to make a home among others. But the Hilltop was the place where he _did_ it.

Here, at the Hilltop, he's both a hunter and a mentor, a Councilman and a godfather. In Tara and Rosita and Aaron, he has easy friendships like he hasn't had since he was a young child, before his father's beatings made him climb into himself. Here, he remembers the boy he used to be, and the wild hopes he used to have.

He inhales the smoky scent of his camp as he leads the horse out of the stable and takes in the familiar sight of the tents and trailers that litter the earth between the mansion and the barns. Beyond these human habitations spread acres and acres of cropland, ending at a fence behind which the Virginia pines grow proud and tall. Through the pines rush the fresh waters of a winding stream. He loves the rustic unpretentiousness of this place.

It would be _perfect_ , if only Carol lived here.

[*]

Before the sun begins to rise, Carol sits up in bed, turns up the oil in her lamp, and drops a match inside, until all the glass is glowing with flame. Then she makes her bed. She goes to her pantry desk, pours fresh water from blue storage drums into her kettle, and sets it on the wood stove Roland installed for her.

While she's waiting for the kettle to boil, she draws out one of Nabila's herbal tea bags and rests it inside a ceramic mug. Then she takes down a single whiskey glass and puts it right next to the bottle she hasn't touched since Daryl was here last week. He told her to trade it for whatever she wanted, but she wants him to have something to sip when they're sitting on her loveseat tonight. She glances with eager anticipation at the coffee table and imagines his feet up on it and his arm around her.

[*]

Daryl leaves Snowball tied to the porch railing of the mansion before he eases quietly through its front door and creeps to Aaron's room. But when he gets there, a half hour earlier than he's _supposed_ to, Judith's _already_ dressed and standing with her overnight pack on and her stuffed bunny held tightly against her chest. Michonne gave her that bunny before the War with the Whisperers.

Gracie still slumbers on the bottom of the trundle bed, and Aaron sits on his cot looking tired and harried. "She's been up for an _hour_ ," he says. "Take her already!"

"Put Cottontail in yer pack," Daryl tells Judith as he shuts the door to Aaron's bedroom behind them.

"But I want to _carry_ him."

"Don't wanna lose 'em. Go on now. Put 'em in yer pack. He'll be safe there."

[*]

Carol settles into a folding deck chair on the porch of her little trailer to watch the sun rise, which she predicts will happen in about fifteen minutes. In the meantime, the sky is a hazy purple, and the steam rising from her tea cup curls into gray ribbons in the early morning darkness.

Khalid steps out of his trailer across the way and dumps the dirty water from his ceramic basin over his porch railing and onto the dry gravelly earth below. "Morning, Carol."

"Good morning," she says. "You're up early."

"I could say the same for you, though I suppose _you_ have a reason."

Carol knows that when Khalid wrote Rosita, he asked her two things – if she would come with Daryl this Sunday, and if he could stay in her RV when he came for the wedding next Saturday. And Carol also knows that when Rosita wrote back she said yes to the second question, but _no_ to the first. Khalid was sorely disappointed. "Come watch the sunrise with me?" she asks sympathetically. "Have a cup of tea?"

Khalid takes her up on the offer, bringing his own deck chair over and situating it alongside hers while she goes inside to pour him a cup from the still warm kettle.

A half hour later, their tea cups are empty, and the sky is aglow with light. Khalid stands, leaves his cup on the rail, and folds up his chair. "I have a well to finish digging. Thank you for the tea, Carol."

Just after Khalid leaves, Roland thunders by on horseback, shouting, "Morning, Carol!" as he passes. Some people go for an early morning jog. He goes for an early morning ride.

To Carol's right the trailer door creaks open, and one of the boys – Jake – steps out and stretches and yawns. Henry's familiar laugh drifts out from somewhere inside the trailer, followed by Matt's. To Carol's left, a woman steps out of her trailer and waters the potted herbs attached to her porch railing. "Good morning, Carol!" she calls and waves. Her husband slides out the door behind her, wraps her up from behind, and kisses her cheek, which makes her giggle. In the distance, from the direction of the chicken coop, comes the cock-a-doodle-doo of the rooster.

The Kingdom is stirring. The air between its fences fills with the sweet noise of life. Carol thinks how much she loves this place, with its relaxed people, its gentle manners, and its cheerful laughter - a home so different from the tense world she once shared with Ed – a place where everyone knows her name and respects her contributions – a place where she's reminded of the optimistic young girl she used to be and of the woman she used to dream of becoming.

It would be _perfect_ , if only Daryl lived here.


	27. Chapter 27

Snowball trots along the shoulder of the highway at a leisurely pace. Daryl rides with Judith between his legs. The articulate little girl chatters: "Olivia….play….best time….stay up….Chutes and Ladders!... sweet apples… _so_ mad….shushed and shushed us….brought my spin top….spin, spin, spin…" And on and on and on. Daryl doesn't hear most of it, because he's carefully watching the road for threats.

Eventually, Judith leans back against his chest and drifts off to sleep for about thirty minutes. She awakes when he rears the horse to a stop, holds her in place with his legs on hers, and shoots a walker emerging from the woods.

Judith grips the horn of the saddle as the creature slumps to the ground. "Ugly skank!" she yells at the dead walker.

"Watch yer language," Daryl tells her as he dismounts. "'N stay up there." His eyes flit from side to side along the highway and into the woods as he jogs to recover his arrow from the fallen walker. He cleans his arrow, tucks his rag into his back pocket, and mounts the horse again.

They're two miles further down the road when Judith says, "My Daryl?"

"Mhmhm?"

"I need to peeeeeeee. So bad!"

He sighs, steers the horse to the opposite shoulder away from the woods – so that no walker can sneak out on her - and dismounts. He helps her down from the horse and begins rummaging through her pack. "Ya pack a funnel?"

Judith was fully potty trained by eighteen months using the outhouses, and she's also learned how to do this outdoors by now using a pee funnel, though it's rare they take her outside the gates of the Hilltop.

"I don't know."

It looks like Aaron packed one for her. He draws out the contraption and hands it to her. "Run the tube downhill. Just leave it behind when yer done." He doesn't want to bother with it. "We'll make a new one. Holler if ya need me." He turns his back to give her privacy while she does her business, but she says she can't get the button on her pants undone, so he has to help her with that. He turns around again.

It seems to take a very long time.

"What's goin' on back there?" he asks.

"I have to get my shoe back on."

"Hell ya take yer shoe off for?" He starts to turn around but sees she's still got her pants down – around her ankles – with one shoe on and one shoe off – so he turns forward again. "Fix yer pants first," he mutters.

"I am!"

It's quiet again for about three minutes, and then she screams in terror.

Daryl whirls, his heart thudding and his finger a millimeter from the trigger of his crossbow. His eyes jump from nothing to nothing. There's _nothing_ there. Just the little girl, pants up, shoes on, ready to go except for an untied shoelace and a popped button.

Judith laughs, a high tittering laugh. "Just kidding!"

"Don't fuckin' do that, ya dumbass!" he roars at her.

Judith's laughter dies instantly. She sucks in her bottom lip and blinks her eyes. Her nostrils begin to tremble. And then she cries.

"No, nah, don't…. didn't mean to…" He walks over, puts a hand on her shoulder, and ushers her toward the horse. "Scared you were hurt." He swings his crossbow on his shoulder. "Just…it ain't funny, okay?" he asks softly.

"I'm sorry."

"'S a'ight." He crouches down and ties her shoe quickly. "Just don't do it again." He stands and buttons her pants. "Real threats out here, ya know?" He lifts her onto the horse and then mounts behind her. Snowball trots back onto the road.

Guilt settles in his gut like an iron ball. That's something his own asshole father would have said to him when he was four. Judith is just a little girl. She needed to be corrected, but not like that.

Judith leans back hesitantly against his chest. "I'm sorry, my Daryl."'

He wraps one arm around her and holds the reins with his free hand. "'M sorry, too."

[*]

"Why so quiet?" Carol asks Daryl as they walk side-by-side toward her trailer. Judith has already gone off with Olivia and Olivia's mother, and the horse is stabled. Daryl greeted Carol's welcoming hug somewhat stiffly. Now she reaches out one fingertip and caresses the back of his hand. He reaches back with a fingertip, and soon her hand is wrapped in his.

"Did somethin' shitty," he says.

Carol's heart spasms. That's what Ed said the first time he came home smelling of some other woman. He didn't want Carol to _make herself up like a whore_ , but he didn't seem to mind the dark red lipstick smudges he came home with that night. And when she timidly asked about them, he said, _I did something, shitty, okay? Don't be a goddamn whiny bitch about it. Won't happen again._ Except of course it did.

"What?" she asks in a voice that's far off, not because she believes Daryl would cheat, but because the old wounds run deep and her brain hasn't quite caught up with the muscle memory of her heart. That still happens to her, sometimes, despite all her growth and healing. And she never knows when it will.

"Yelled at Little Ass Kicker," he mutters. "Swore at 'er. She scared me. Pretendin' to be bit or some shit. 'N…called her a dumbass. Made 'er cry."

It's a moment before Carol can even process his words enough to feel the relief. That's when she realizes he's studying her face, wanting her absolution. By then, they're at her trailer door. She kisses him on the cheek. "Come on in. We'll talk about it."

They do, for a while, sitting side by side on her loveseat, with their feet up on the coffee table. She's just asked him how many times in his life his own father apologized for yelling at him.

"Never."

"And you still think you're like your father?" she asks.

"Was in that second."

"You were _scared_ , Daryl."

"'S pissed off, too," he admits. "'S angry."

"You were angry _because_ you were scared. You made a mistake, but you realized it. And you put it right."

" _Can't_ put it right," he mutters. "Shit like that… _sticks_ with a kid."

"Sure. But so does playing Candy Land five times in one week. And reading bedtime stories. And taking her fifteen miles by horseback to see her new best friend." Carol smiles softly. "Daryl, Judith will have a hundred good memories to railroad over that one bad one. And it's probably not the last mistake you'll make. But then she'll have a hundred more good memories, too. Because you're a good daddy." She puts a hand on his knee. "You _are_."

Daryl chews on his bottom lip. He lifts her hand from his knee, toys with her fingers, and then presses her palm against the rough stubble that lines his cheek. "Ya believe such crazy shit 'bout me."

"Yeah, well," she says gently. "Like I told you before - I'm not going to _stop_ believing it."

He leans forward and kisses her, softly at first, but the pressure grows. It's not long before he's pushing her back against the arm of the loveseat and working his lips down her neck.

He tugs at the bottom of her blouse, which pulls it down to reveal her cleavage, and then kisses his way down before dipping his tongue between her breasts. Carol instinctively jerks up against him. He growls and returns his lips to her mouth while pushing the emerging bulge in his jeans against her. Soon, they're dry humping like two teenagers in the cramped, backseat of a car.

"Daryl," she breathes between kisses. "I'm not sixteen anymore. Let's take this to the bed."

"Yeah," he pants. "Good." He slides off of her and yanks her up against his chest, but stumbles back in the process and slams the back of his legs against the coffee table. She giggles when he curses. "Laughin' like yer sixteen, though," he grumbles.

"Sorry. Did it hurt?"

"Mhmhm. Bet ya can make me forget all my pain, though."

[*]

Daryl's ticklish fingertip slides across Carol's bare back, from the curve of one breast to the curve of the other, sweeps down in a semi-circle, and then sweeps across again. She squirms against the mattress where she lies stomach down, her cheek on the pillow. "A heart?" she guess.

"Nah!" He lies facing her, elbow on the mattress, head propped up on one hand. "Canon."

"That felt nothing like a cannon."

He smirks. "Yeah, well, felt like a cannon goin' off a few minutes ago, didn't it?"

Carol blushes. She was embarrassingly loud when she came during oral sex, because he did something different toward the end this time – he pinched both of her nipples at the same time _while_ he was licking her. She'd never felt so intensely stimulated in so many places at once before.

He squeezes the left cheek of her ass. "Love lickin' my vanilla all up, watchin' it melt right under my tongue."

She rolls onto her side and smiles at him. "Well, you got yours, too, didn't you?" While she was still trembling from her orgasm, he rolled her onto her stomach, lifted her slightly onto her knees on the bed, and asked, _Ya want this?_ When she moaned yes, he drove into her from behind. He thrust hard and fast, and came noisily, groaning his words so low she couldn't tell what he was saying. "Is that the way you like to do it?" she asks now.

He slides his hand up to the small of her back and draws her flush against himself. "Ain't no way I _don't_ like to do it. But we ain't got to do it that way again if ya don't want."

"I liked it," she says. "I mean…not for _every_ time. But I liked it."

"Know what the best thing 'bout plain vanilla ice cream is?" he murmurs.

"What's that?"

"All the diffr'n toppin's I get to try out on it for the first time."

"What if _I_ want to _be_ a topping?" she asks.

Daryl rolls onto his back and tugs her on top of him in the process. "Ya can be my cherry on top any day."

She chuckles, squirms suggestively against him, but then slides off. "Maybe later tonight. I don't think I could handle another round right now. And you need to be at your falconry lesson in ten minutes."

Daryl turns and looks toward the window. "'S that late already?"

"Well, we were talking for a while. And then we were doing _other things_ for a while…."

He crawls out of bed hurriedly and starts pulling on his clothes.

"Relax," she tells him. "It's not that far of a walk. You'll be on time."

"On time's late."

"Is it?" she asks.

"Mhm. 'S what Coach Tucker used to say." He slams down into one of the blue student chairs at her table and yanks on a boot.

"Who's Coach Tucker?"

"'M junior high school rasslin' coach."

"You…" She sits up. " _What?_ _You_ were on a _wrestling_ team in junior high?"

He yanks his other boot on. "Hell ya sound so surprised for?"

"I didn't think you were exactly a team player."

"Every boy _had_ to be on some team or they put ya in the sissy phys ed class 'stead of athletics. Liable to get yer ass kicked if ya took that. 'S either rasslin', football, or basketball. Was too short for basketball and too scrawny for football."

"But not too scrawny for wrestling?"

"Rolled with the lightweights. 'N I's _mean_."

She laughs. "Well, I want to hear all about Daryl Dixon's junior high wrestling career after dinner tonight." As he stands and slides on his jacket, she says, "By the way, I got your bacon grease. Two pounds. I'll get it out of storage for you before you go."

"Thanks. 'Preciate it."

"Well, you're going to have to give up that second bottle of whiskey."

"Don't need it anyhow." Daryl plucks his crossbow up from the breakfast table where he left it.

"Since I did you that favor, would you do _me_ a favor?"

"Mhm."

"I had the birds and the bees talk with Henry back when he was only twelve, and since then I've emphasized the importance of respecting girls, but he doesn't really have a _man_ to talk to. I mean, there are lots of men here, but I don't know that any of them have really talked to him. Could you maybe talk to him?" Carol _does_ want Henry to have a man to turn to, but she also wants Daryl to understand she trusts him to be a good parent-figure.

Daryl shifts uneasily from one foot to the other. "'Bout the birds n' the bees?"

"He knows all the biology. I just mean…could you maybe give him a little male guidance? He's only getting one perspective from me."

Daryl chews on his thumbnail.

"Please?"

"Mhm. Sure." His thumb drops back to his side again. "I'll take care of it."


	28. Chapter 28

Daryl's falconry lesson goes well, but he sees why Carol's suddenly gotten worried about Henry and the birds and the bees. Elizabeth and Henry have become very chummy. There's a lot of mutual teasing and smiles during the lesson, and as they walk out of the football stadium afterward, Elizabeth rubs her shoulder against his, and then Henry takes the hint and drapes an arm around her. The kid is only about one inch taller than Elizabeth at the moment, but Daryl suspects he's got another six inches to grow.

"Henry!" Daryl hollers, and the boy drops his arm and turns back. "C'mere a sec." Daryl motions him and walks over to the bleachers, out of earshot of the departing teens.

Henry jogs over while Jake, Matt, and Elizabeth walk on.

"What is it?" Henry asks.

Daryl rests an arm on the lower railing of the bleachers. He remembers what Roland told Liam in the bathhouse. "Word to the wise," he says. "Don't knock that girl up."

Henry flushes crimson. "We….we haven't….we're not….I'm not even _thinking_ about - "

"- Like hell ya ain't _thinking_ 'bout it!" Daryl was fourteen once. "Damn well know it's 'bout _all_ you _are_ thinkin' 'bout. But there ain't no condoms left, and pullin' out don't always work. _Trust me_ on that one."

Henry looks anxiously back over his shoulder at his fellow teenagers who are disappearing out of an opening in the chainlink fence that surrounds the football field. When he turns back to Daryl again, his eyes dart away.

"Listen, kid, just don't go all the way. Don't do the deed 'til yer old 'nuff to handle maybe bein' a daddy if ya accidentally end up one. All sorts of shit ya can do in the meantime. Dry humpin'. Handjobs, fingerin', blo – "

"- Okay!" Henry shouts. "I know all the stuff. I've read books."

"Kid, ya don't know _half_ the stuff."

Henry looks straight down at the ground.

Daryl tries to think what else Carol would want him to tell Henry, what sort of _male guidance_ he should give. He tries to think back on his own high school dating days. "The girl sets the pace. I mean, ya can _try_ stuff, ain't no harm in _tryin'_ , but if she puts ya off – cut that shit right out."

"I know," Henry mutters to the ground. "Respect."

"Then wait seven days 'fore ya try it again."

Henry's head snaps up. "Why seven days?"

"It's long 'nuff she probably ain't gonna get pissed off. She might put ya off again, in which case ya got to back off again. But she might let ya." Daryl points a warning finger at him. "But even _if_ she _does_ let ya – don't do somethin' that might knock 'er up."

"Yeah. Got that part." Henry glances nervously back and forth and then looks at Daryl almost directly. "Look, right now I'm just trying to figure out where I can take her for a date."

"Hmmm…." Daryl rubs his goatee. "Drive 'n movies the best place for makin' out with a girl, but we ain't got those no more."

"I took her on a horseback ride yesterday. Just around the Kingdom. She let me ride in back, you know, with my arms around her." Henry says it a little excitedly, as if it's a pretty big score to have his arms around a girl. "And then I took her to church this morning."

" _Church_?" Daryl asks.

"She let me hold her hand during all the prayers. And then she put her head on my shoulder when the homily got boring."

Suddenly, Daryl thinks maybe fourteen-year-old Henry is a hell of a lot more innocent than fourteen-year-old Daryl was, despite the fact that Henry's coming of age in a world of walkers and war. Of course, he's also coming of age in a world without his daddy's stash of VHS porn.

"I want to take her on a real date," Henry tells him. "I just don't know where. I was thinking maybe I'd invite her to Liam's wedding on Saturday. Only a small group of us is leaving the Kingdom for that, but I think there might be dancing at the reception. And maybe she'll slow dance with me."

"Mhmhm. Yeah. Ask 'er to that."

"But what if she says no?"

"Hell would she say no for? Clearly likes ya."

Henry smiles. "Yeah. I think maybe she does." He nods. "Yeah. Ok. That's what I'll do." He looks back over his shoulder again and then returns his eyes to Daryl. "So can I _go_ now?"

Daryl nods and Henry runs off to catch up with his friends.

 **[*]**

Daryl finds Carol helping in the outdoor kitchen. She turns to the man and woman working alongside her and says, "You know what goes into it, right?"

"We'll finish up here," the woman assures her.

Carol washes her hands with a nearby manual water pump and then dries them before leading Daryl down a dirt path in the general direction of the school. "So….did you talk to Henry?"

"Mhmhm."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Uh…'s 'tween me 'n him. Ya know…just gave 'em some _male guidance_."

"Well, thank you. I'm just worried about him, you know. I can tell he and Elizabeth are starting something. I _like_ her, I do, way more than I liked Rachel, but she's _older_ than him. By almost _three_ years."

Daryl smirks. "Yeah. Older girls're dangerous."

" _Stop_."

He chuckles.

"I _am_ robbing the cradle," she admits.

Daryl chuffs. "If a _toddler_ robbed cradles."

"More like a kindergartener. When I was a sexy cheerleader my freshman year of high school, you were just a little 4th grade boy who thought girls had cooties."

"I'd of gladly caught cooties from ya." He looks her up and down.

"Are you having evil thoughts, young Mr. Dixon?"

"Thinkin' 'bout what ya'd look like in a cheerleadin' uniform."

She laughs and reaches out and takes his hand. Lacing her fingers through his, she says, "Yeah, well I'm wondering what you looked like in that wrestling singlet."

"Aw, hell, those things were so gay. Lost mine on purpose. Coach let me wear shorts and a –" He almost says _wifebeater_. "Muscle shirt."

"Well I've seen you in plenty of those." They're at the front door of the school now, and she lets go of his hand as she opens the door. It's not until they're inside the school that it occurs to him to ask, "Hell we goin'?"

"To play Trivial Pursuit. With Ezekiel and Khalid and Roland. It's something they do every Sunday."

Daryl's boots squeak to a stop on the faux marble hallway. "Aw, hell no!"

"Please? Sometimes I join in. It's fun. And Jerry's playing, too, today. The teams will be uneven if you don't play."

" _Jerry_?" Daryl asks.

"See, now you're curious, aren't you?" She bats her eyelashes. "Pretty please, Pookie?"

"I ain't never played that game 'fore."

"You can be on my team. You don't have to do anything except roll the dice, and if you happen to know something, answer it. If not, you can just sit there and glower at our opponents to intimidate them."

"Fine," he mutters.

Carol takes his hand and tugs him on down the hall. As they pass a row of blue lockers, she reaches out and twirls one of the knobs. "I still remember my high school combination. Do you?"

"Never went to my locker. Took m' books home 'n never touched 'em again. Always had to borrow shit off of people. Pencils. Paper. 'Member my girl's combination, though. 34-22-18."

"Did you leave love notes in her locker?"

"Told ya. Ain't never wrote a letter 'fore I wrote you. Left 'er cigarettes."

A little further down the hallway, Carol stops walking and teases, "Want to make out under the stairwell?"

"Stahp."

She smiles and leans back against the third to last locker in the row, a few feet from the staircase, and laces a finger through his belt loop to draw him close. "How about against the lockers?"

Daryl pins her against the lockers with a palm flat down on either side of her head. He leans in to kiss her and forces her lips open with his tongue. His breath thickens as he nips at her neck, and she breathes in, swallows, and lifts her head so his teeth can reach more sensitive flesh.

Somewhere in the hallway, a door slams open. Daryl leaps back instantly, turns away, and thuds back against the last locker in the row.

A woman Daryl doesn't know walks out of a classroom several doors down the hallway. She spies Carol, waves, and says, "I'm looking forward to that smoked pheasant tonight!"

"Me, too!" Carol replies. "I'm sure the other cooks are doing a great job with it right now."

The woman walks on. When she turns a corner, Carol giggles and Daryl snorts.

"That was a close one," she says, taking his hand and tugging him toward the stairs. "We almost got detention."

[*]

When they reach the top of the stairwell, girlish laughter and squeals echo against the walls. Daryl comes to a slow stop and grins. Judith is sitting in one of those blue plastic chairs with wheels, and Olivia is pushing her down the hallway. Olivia stops running and Judith keeps flying. The chair turns and rolls backward a few more feet before Daryl catches it.

"You girls will knock your heads open if you fall off that chair onto this hard floor," Carol warns them.

"Aww, c'mon. Don't be such a killjoy. Just havin' fun." Daryl gives Judith a running push back toward Olivia, lets go, and the chair careens down the hallway toward the other girl. The chair bumps into Olivia and both girls tumble laughing to the ground.

Judith sits up, says, "Ow," and rubs the back of her head, but then immediately stands and picks the fallen chair back up and sits in it again.

" _See_ ," Daryl tells Carol.

"Where is your mother, Olivia?" Carol asks.

Stephanie pops her head out of an open classroom door. "I'm right here!" she calls. "I was just looking for this!" She holds up a bicycle helmet.

"Oh fer Christ sake," Daryl mutters.

[*]

The Trivial Pursuit board is alreadly laid out on a circular wooden table in the second-floor teacher's lounge. Khalid, Jerry, Ezekiel, and Roland sit around the table, and Carol rolls up two more chairs from another table. "Daryl's on my team," she announces. "We want the pink pie."

"Pink?" Daryl grumbles as he sits down and rolls up to the table.

"Well, the yellow and blue appear to be taken, and the orange and green are lost."

"We've gone through that entire Genus deck, so now we're doing the Baby Boomer edition," Jerry explains as he sets two boxes of cards on the table. "I guess we're all going to suck at this since none of us are Boomers."

"Speak for yourself," Ezekiel tells him.

"What?" Jerry asks. "No way!"

"I just barely make it under the 1964 cut-off."

"How _old_ are you?" Jerry asks.

"Well, you can do the math, my young friend," Ezekiel tells him.

Jerry looks up. His eyes move back and forth. Then he looks back at Ezekiel. "You do _not_ look sixty-nine!"

"Fifty-four, genius," Daryl mutters.

"Oh." Jerry takes off the top from one of the boxes of questions. "I forgot what year it was."

Khalid chuckles. "And what decade, apparently."

"I'm _almost_ a boomer," Carol grumbles.

"I'm not far behind you, Carol," Roland says. "I'll turn the big 5-0 this year."

"'S all arbitrary bullshit anyhow," Daryl insists. "If '64's the cutoff, 'm own brother wasn't even in my generation. How the hell ya come out the same womb and be in two different generations?"

"I had no idea everyone was so old!" Jerry looks at Khalid. "You're not fifty, are you?"

"I'm thirty-nine!" Khalid slides a hand over his dark black hair, which is graying at the temples.

"Guess I'm the baby." Jerry puts the dice on the board. "I think I'm _technically_ a Millenial."

"My older children were all Millenials," Roland says. "But Liam is Generation Z." He grits his teeth, maybe because he's thinking about his dead children, or maybe because he's thinking about the grown one that will soon be marrying and moving away. "But my grandchildren will be the post-apocalyptic generation."

Ezekiel shoots him a sympathetic look but then breaks the sour mood by clapping his hands together. "Shall we commence the battle of wits?"


	29. Chapter 29

Ezekiel and Jerry go first. Ezekiel pushes one of the two boxes of questions cards over to Daryl. "Would you read to our team?"

Daryl is gripped with quiet panic, the same kind he used to feel in fourth grade when the teacher went around the room asking kids to read aloud from the textbook. But then Carol reaches over him, grabs the box, and says, "I like reading the questions. Do you mind, Daryl?"

"Nah," he says, relief and gratitude easing through his tightened muscles. "Go ahead."

[*]

Daryl better get his brains fucked out tonight for agreeing to play this game. That's what he thinks. It's all a bunch of ridiculous nonsense.

Jerry and Ezekiel's turn is taking for-goddamn-ever. They just keep answering questions correctly and moving around and going again. And Ezekiel looks so sickeningly smug every time they win a slice and he slides it into their pompous blue pie. Daryl wanted the blue.

Finally, they dynamic duo misses one, and Khalid reaches for the dice. He and Roland manage to secure a single pie piece during their only slightly shorter turn. When the dice get handed over to Daryl and Carol, they wash out in three questions, earning not a single triangle.

"Sorry," Daryl mutters. "Don't know shit."

"You knew both the RPM questions," Carol reassures him.

He did. One was about Jimi Hendrix and the other about Pink Floyd, but as far as he can tell, it doesn't matter what you know if you aren't on a triangle. He sighs in a closed-mouth growl and braces himself for a long, torturous game.

[*]

Jerry and Ezekiel have three pie pieces now, and Khalid and Roland have two. But Daryl and Carol have finally manged to get one, and Daryl's surprised by the little competitive jolt he gets when he slides it in.

"Get us on another triangle," Carol demands as she hands Daryl the dice.

Daryl holds them up to her lips. "Blow for luck."

Carol's warm breath blows onto his palm, tingling his flesh, and he rolls the dice. She sighs when she sees the numbers.

"'S good," Daryl assures her. "'S a roll again."

"Oooh!" Carol moves their pink pie with a click clack clack to the roll again space.

Daryl sweeps up the dice and raises his palm to her lips again. "Now blow real good this time."

A fart-like laugh erupts through Jerry's closed lips.

Daryl flushes pinkish-red.

Carol looks uneasy, probably because of what happened last week.

Daryl flings the dice peevishly on the board. "Get yer mind out the gutter!" he growls.

Jerry looks about as contrite as a schoolboy being scolded by a teacher he doesn't take seriously. "Sorry."

Roland asks, "Daryl, how's Maggie by the way?"

Khalid smirks. "Now that was an interesting thought association process."

Roland glares at him.

"Maggie's fine." Daryl glances across the table at Khalid. "So's Rosita."

"Oh, I'm sure she is," Khalid says with a hint of bitterness. "Keeping very busy I imagine. Much too busy to visit the Kingdom."

Carol moves their playing piece to a triangle space and says, "All right. Here's our chance to tie it up with Roland and Khalid."

"Your category is publishing," Ezekiel announces as he lays the question card on the table. "What Carole King song opened with the line – Tonight, you're mine completely?"

"Ain't publishin'!" Daryl grumbles. "'S music!"

Carol looks at him, smiles, and sings,

 _Tonight you're mine, completely_  
 _You give your love so sweetly_  
 _Tonight the light of love is in your eyes_  
 _But will you love me tomorrow?_

Roland joins in with her on the next verse, in a deep baritone:

 _Is this a lasting treasure_  
 _Or just a moment's pleasure_  
 _Can I believe the magic of your sighs_  
 _Will you still love me tomorrow?_

"Damn," Daryl says. "Ya can actually sing."

"Thank you," Roland replies.

"Not you, dumbass! M'girl."

"Well…." Carol smiles. " _Your girl_ was in the church youth choir. A lifetime ago."

"You should join the Kingdom's choir, Carol," Jerry tells her. "Why haven't you?"

"I don't know. I just haven't thought of doing it in…." She shakes her head. "So long. And I'm not as good as those people. I'm certainly nowhere near as good as Roland."

"Just do it, Carol!" Khalid insists. "You'll love it."

"We could really use another alto," Roland assures her.

"Music fuels the soul in these dark times," Ezekiel agrees.

Daryl looks from Jerry to Kahlid to Roland to Ezekiel and then to a smiling Carol. He feels out-of-place in the midst of all the comradery, and he's puzzled by how _at home_ Carol seems here, among these people who have never been family to him.

"I'll think about it," she tells them. She picks a brown triangle out of the plastic bag that holds the playing pieces.

"You didn't actually _say_ the title of the song," Ezekiel notes.

"Really, Zeke?" Carol asks. "I sung the entire thing."

"But what's the _title_?"

Carol enunciates each word deliberately: "Will. You. Still. Love. Me. Tomorrow. Good enough?"

"Not quite. There's no _Still_ in the title."

Daryl flicks Ezekiel off, takes the triangle from Carol's hand, and shoves it in their playing piece before rolling the dice again. She lands on a roll again, tosses the dice, and lets out a whoop. "We landed on another triangle!" Daryl smiles at her excitement as she slides their pie over to the space with the yellow triangle.

"Who said, _Let us continue_?" Ezekiel reads without his usual flourish and eyeing Daryl as though slightly peeved. It occurs to the Daryl that _the king_ might actually be just a little bit competitive when it comes to Trivial Pursuit. Which is going to make it all the sweeter when Daryl kicks his royal ass.

"What is this category again?" Carol asks.

"Nightly News," Ezekiel replies.

"Lyndon B. Johnson," Daryl answers.

Ezekiel appears momentarily surprised, but he hides that surprise almost instantly. "Correct."

"Boo-yah!" Daryl slaps his hands together and then slides out a yellow triangle from the bag.

"What does that even mean?" Carol asks him. "Let us continue?"

Daryl wedges the triangle into the pie. "Famous speech he gave."

"You weren't even _born_ when he was president."

"Yeah, but 's famous speech. Ya know – Today in this moment of new resolve, let us continue. This is our challenge - not to hesitate, not to pause, not to turn 'bout 'n linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course…And some other shit."

"Did you have to _memorize_ the speech?" Khalid asks. "For school?"

"Nah…just heard it a few times. My nana left all these damn spoken voice records in her trailer when she died. Famous speeches, radio plays 'n shit."

Daryl used to listen to them on his turntable in his cramped bedroom in the single-wide he and his father inhabited after the cabin burned up. With Mama dead and Merle gone and his Daddy out late drinking and whoring so many nights….it was too damn quiet. Those records helped him fall asleep. He listened to them for years, even after he moved out and was living alone in that tiny RV on a rented campsite. He listened to them until the day Merle came back to town and crashed with him. Merle laughed and asked, _Does little baby Dawyl need his stories to sweep_?

"We're tied for first now," Carol observes as she rolls the dice. They don't land on a triangle this time, but on a regular pink space – Stage & Screen.

"Well, Daryl should know this one," Ezekiel says. "What 1981 cartoon featured big-breasted women toting laser guns?"

"Hell's that mean?" Daryl barks. "I should _know_ that?"

"I just assumed you were watching cartoons in 1981. You would have been about eleven, right?"

Daryl narrows his eyes at him. "Weren't a cartoon," he mutters. "'S an animated _movie_. Didn't see it as a kid. Saw it on VHS when I was twenty somethin'. _Heavy Metal_. Awesome soundtrack."

"Which is exclusively what you watched it for, of course," Khalid smirks. "The _soundtrack_."

"He also read Playboy for the articles," Roland agrees.

Jerry chuckles while Daryl glowers.

"Is that the right answer?" Carol asks.

"Yes," Ezekiel says as he slides the card into the back of the deck and draws another.

Daryl rolls the dice. They land on an RPM triangle, and Ezekiel reads, "What group did Eric Clapton form after leaving the Yardbirds?"

"I have no idea," Carol admits. "I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel in high school. And the Kingston Trio."

"The _Kingston Trio_?" Daryl asks.

"Those were my mother's records. But I liked them. I'm not ashamed to say it."

" _Should_ be ashamed to say it," Daryl mutters.

"I liked them too, Carol," Khalid admits.

Roland starts singing, "Hang down your head, Tom Dooley, Hang down your head and cry." Carol joins in: "Hang down your head, Tom Dooley. Poor boy you're bound to die."

"See," Jerry insists. "You should join the Kingdom choir."

"I said I'd _think_ about it," Carol assures him. "I want to make sure I have enough time for my knife throwing practice. I think that's a tad more important."

"Answer's Cream," Daryl says.

"Right you are," Ezekiel agrees.

Daryl jams the orange pie piece in their pink pie. Two more to go. Carol rolls this time, to a roll again, and then to another roll again, and then to a blue triangle space.

"I think those dice are loaded," Ezekiel opines.

"Read the damn question," Daryl replies.

"Your category is Television."

"Yeah, we know," Daryl mutters. "Can see the damn blue triangle."

"Who starred along with Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson in Charlie's Angels?"

"Well, you know this one, Pookie," Carol says. "She's your childhood celebrity crush."

Daryl flushes. Carol's not supposed to call him that _in front_ of other people. "Farrah Fawcett," he mutters.

"Pookie?" Jerry half-shouts.

Khalid laughs and Roland lets out a chuckle, while Ezekiel just gets a puzzled look on his face.

"Sorry," Carol whispers to him.

Daryl keeps his eyes on the board as he rolls, waiting for the heat in his cheeks to cool. They miss their next question, and Jerry and Ezekiel earn another pie piece on their turn and then Khalid and Roland get two. But when the dice come back to Daryl, and he rolls a number that takes them straight to the last pie piece they need, he yells, Hell yeah!"

"Life and Times, please," Carol says.

"This one hardly seems fair. Daryl's certain to know it." Ezekiel clears his throat before he reads the question. "What cigarette claimed to have the filter that was _in, recessed in_?"

"Hell if I know," Daryl grumbles. "I smoked Morleys."

"It's Parliament," Carol says. "My dad smoked them." She smiles teasingly at Daryl. " _Only the flavor touches your lips_." And then she bites her bottom lip.

He can't form the word _Stop_ this time. He can't do anything but look at her lips and think how the taste of her still lingers on his tongue. Ezekiel's voice interrupts his dirty thoughts: "You still have to get to the center and answer a question of _our_ choice."

"Hell kind of rule is that?" Daryl asks. "Ya just made that up 'cause we won!"

"No, it's in the official rules," Carol tells him.

They don't make it to the center on their next roll, and they land on an RPM question. "What was the fifth studio album by English rock band Led Zeppelin?"

"No clue," Carol says. "Never listened to them."

"Houses of the Holy," Daryl answers. "How can ya not of listened to Zeppelin?"

"It wasn't my style of music."

"Well 'm gonna find some Zeppelin records 'n bring 'em next time. Play 'em on that hand crank of yers. Give ya an _education_."

"I have some Kingston Trio we can play tonight," she teases.

He growls and rolls again. They don't get to the center but go through it and down another leg to a different RPM space, because Daryl feels pretty confident he's got a handle on those questions.

"What Dire Straits album contains the smash hit single _Money for Nothing_?" Ezekiel reads.

"No idea," Carol says.

"Brothers in Arms," Daryl answers.

"Correct." Ezekiel tucks the card back in to the back of the deck.

Daryl leads them to another RPM question – one about AC/DC – to which Carol again says, "No idea," but he gets it right.

"You sure know your rock and roll," Jerry says. "I would have thought you were more of a country music fan."

"I fuckin' _hate_ country music."

"Really?" Roland asks with a doubtful look. "Even Johnny Cash?"

"Well, no, not Cash. He's is a'ight. And Hank Williams. But none of that Garth Brooks bullshit."

"What kind of music did you listen to, Ezekiel?" Jerry asks.

"Classical, primarily."

Daryl rolls his eyes.

"What's wrong with classical?" Ezekiel asks him.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with it," Daryl says. He just thinks Ezekiel is a pretentious ass sometimes. But his nana had a lot of classical music records she left behind, along with the speeches and the radio plays, and he didn't mind the sound of them. "Chopin, Wagner, Bach, Vivaldi, Holst, Strauss, Rossini…them sonofabitches ain't half bad."

Ezekiel's eyes widen slightly, and Daryl can't help but enjoy his surprise.

He and Carol keep missing the center when they roll, and Daryl keeps opting for RPM on one of the legs and getting the questions right, until they can't manage to land on an RPM and they miss a publishing question.

"Finally!" Jerry says.

By the time the dice come back to Daryl and Carol again, Ezekiel and Jerry have all their pie pieces and Khalid and Roland are just one short.

"We better get this right," Carol tells him when they finally land on the center.

"Let's confer." Ezekiel leans in. "We need to pick their worst category."

"Well it's certainly not music," Khalid says.

They settle on publishing, a choice Daryl resents, but maybe Carol will know the answer. Ezekiel reads, "What 1968 book by Tom Wolfe featured a band of Merry Pranksters traveling by school bus in search of intersubjectivity?"

"I have no idea what that even _means_ ," Carol admits. " _Intersubjectivity_?"

"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," Daryl answers.

Ezekiel turns the card over. Disappointment flashes across his face for the briefest of moments, but he calmly says, "And we have a winner."

Carol shoots Daryl a puzzled look.

"Merle had it. 'S about drugs. He had that, 'n _On the Road_ , 'n _Naked Lunch_ ….think he liked readin' books 'bout gettin' high. 'N then he'd get high and give me his literary analysis."

Carol chuckles. "I'm having a hard time imagining Merle analyzing literature."

"Who's Merle?" the rest of the table asks in chorus.

Daryl's eyes meet Carol's. They had another life together, one time, back in Georgia, before the Hilltop and the Kingdom. Another life with another family. They shared campsite after campsite – at the quarry, in the CDC, on the farm, and in the prison – where they slept every night just a few cell blocks apart.

"It was a long time ago," Carol says softly. "It's a long story. And I think it's time for dinner."

[*]

The chatter of conversation surrounds Daryl like the hum of insects while he eats – a steady background noise. It's a minute before he realizes Dianne is talking specifically to him.

"Have you been practicing longbow for our rematch?" she repeats.

Daryl chews a little slower. He'd completely forgotten about the bet. "Uh…" He's been so busy hunting and building his bacon bike that he hasn't really had time to practice at all. "Gonna."

"Well, you've got six days, Robin Hood," she tells him as she picks up her fork. "I'd get cracking if I were you. I just shot a 56 yesterday with the crossbow."

A 56? That's her _worst_ weapon. "At how many yards?"

"Thirty. I'm not quite there at sixty yet, but I'm working on it. Where are you on the longbow?"

"Workin' on it," Daryl insists.


	30. Chapter 30

Carol pours two fingers of whiskey in the glass she brings to Daryl, who is sitting on the love seat. His hair is still deliciously damp from the communal bath. He takes the glass with a mumbled thank you, and she sits down beside him. The trailer is lit by the soft, flickering glow of a low fire in the wood stove, which also warms the room.

"Want some?" Daryl extends the glass of whiskey to her.

"No. I'm just keeping it for visits from Pookie."

"Gone start callin' _you_ emabrassin' names in public," he mutters.

"Oh I doubt that," she says. "That would embarrass you way more than it would embarrass me." She pulls her leg up slightly so that her bent knee is touching his bare leg. He's wearing those red silk boxers and the t-shirt she lent him the first time he spent the night with her. She keeps them, along with the sweat pants, in a designated drawer of the night stand. There's also a toothbrush in there, because he forgot his last time. "Although you _did_ call me your girl in public."

"I did?"

"Yes, you said you weren't talking about Roland's singing, you were talking about your girl's."

"Oh. That a'ight?"

"Of course it's all right." She glances over at the phonograph resting atop one of the nightstands by the bed. "You want me to put on some Kingston Trio?" she teases. When he narrows his eyes, she says, "I do have some Vivaldi."

"Nah, s' a'ight. Sound of yer voice's enough."

"Enough for what?"

"To make me feel relaxed."

She smiles. "Thank you for playing Trivial Pursuit with me. I had a lot of fun, and I know you didn't want to."

"Yeah, well, least we kicked Ezekiel's ass."

"Oh, you enjoyed that, did you?"

"Little bit," he admits. He bends to kiss her shoulder, nuzzles her neck, and breathes in her freshly bathed scent. "Ya smell nice."

"It's the lavender Stephanie puts in the soap when she makes it. The men's bathhouse doesn't get the _special_ soap."

"Who's Stephanie again?" he asks.

"Olivia's mom? The one you've entrusted your goddaughter to for the night?"

"Ah, yeah. She seems a'ight." He pulls slightly away to sip. "Hey," he asks, "How come all yer friends are guys?"

"They aren't. I get along fine with Nabila. And Stephanie. And Dianne."

"But that ain't who ya _hang out_ with. Mostly ya hang out with Khalid and Roland and 'Zekial, don't ya?"

Carol stiffens reflexively. Ed always thought anytime she so much as spoke in a friendly way to a man, she was flirting with him. _Don't be a whore_ , he used to tell her. "I'm _going_ to have male friends, Daryl. You can't ask me not to."

"Ain't askin' ya not to. Just wonderin' is all."

She relaxes, lowers her leg, tuns, and sinks against his side. He drapes an arm around her. "Well, I guess I could ask the same of you. Why are all your friends female? Rosita. Tara. Maggie. And, well, Aaron, but he's not exactly your _typical_ man."

"Huh," Daryl says.

"Huh," she echoes.

"Never thought 'bout it."

"Ed cut me off from all of my friends," she says. "And I think I forgot how to have friends. The first time since marrying him that I started to feel like I might make friends was at the quarry. Andrea and Amy and Jacqui and I were all doing laundry and laughing…Ed came over and…." She feels the anger flare up – not anger at Ed, but anger at herself for having put up with his violent intrusion, for having tried to get the others to stop defending her. For not accepting their friendship. "Anyway, it took me awhile to spread my wings and realize I deserved friends. And then…I didn't exactly know how to _make_ them." She turns her blue eyes up to his. "You were the first friend I ever made in this world. And the best one."

Daryl's thumbnail goes straight between his teeth and he gnaws at it. She used to think he did that when he was nervous, but now she thinks he does it when the emotions are so strong and foreign that he doesn't quite know how to process them.

"And I think maybe boys are just _easier_ to be friends with," she continues. "There's less of a social maze to navigate there. My inexperience with friendships isn't as big a deal with men. They don't get offended as easily, they don't feel like they're competing with you for male attention, they don't gossip."

He lowers his hand. "Khalid's damn well a gossip."

She laughs. "Yeah. You're right. He is. But I still think men are easier."

"You, too," he says, his eyes flitting tentatively to hers. "First friend I ever made in this world. Hell, first friend I _ever_ made maybe."

"Really?"

"Well, I played with the neighborhood kids in elementary school. Hung out with my girl in high school. But once Merle came back, 's always hangin' out with _his_ friends. Ain't none of 'em were really _my_ friends. Merle acted like they were. But they weren't. I didn't even _like_ most of 'em."

"And now you have a gaggle of girlfriends."

"Think maybe I got more girls as friends 'cause they _make_ me their friend. A guy, if ya wander off on yer own… he's just gonna leave ya the hell alone. But y'all women are always comin' after me." He moves his hand open and closed in a mouth-like motion. "Jabberin'."

Carol laughs. They're quiet for a while, just relaxed and lounging together, with Daryl slowly sipping his whiskey. "So…." Carol says finally, patting his knee. "When I dropped those extra candles off at Henry's trailer after the baths, we had an interesting conversation about your conversation with him."

Daryl chokes on his drink. He swallows hard. "He _told_ ya? He told ya what I said to 'em?"

"I doubt very much he told me _everything_ , but he was concerned you'd gotten me pregnant."

"What? Why?"

"Because apparently you told him to _trust you_ when you said pulling out doesn't always work."

"Oh."

"So I had to reassure him that my tubes were tied right after Sophia was born and I couldn't get pregnant." Ed hadn't wanted more children. He hadn't even wanted the first one. Ed wanted to be the center of Carol's world.

"Ya got yer tubes tied?"

"Yes. Were you not listening? Why do you _think_ I said I can't get pregnant?"

"Uh…"

"Because I'm _too old_?"

"Are we 'bout to fight?" Daryl asks nervously.

"No, Pookie. We only have thirteen hours left together. And we have to sleep at least some of that. We don't have time to fight."

Maybe if they lived together, they'd have time for all the little stuff couples do, including the fighting. It occurs to Carol that perhaps this is the ideal arrangement in Daryl's mind. He can do his own thing all week long, in complete independence, and then, when he comes to her, she's so eager to see him, that at least two rounds of willing sex is a guarantee. He doesn't have to worry about being nagged for leaving his socks lying on the trailer floor. He doesn't have to worry about what hour he gets back in when he goes outside the gates. He doesn't have to listen to her talk every night, and he can tinker with his bike instead of being asked to play Trivial Pursuit.

"You're a bit of an outdoor cat, aren't you?" she asks.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just mean…" She sighs. "You really need your space."

"Yeah, and you don't? Hell, ya left Alexandria, took a whole damn house to yerself."

"You sound like you're still bitter about that."

"'M a little bit," he admits. "Ya just left. Didn't even say _goodbye_. Mean…not to _me_. Ya just left Tobin that note."

"I was afraid if I tried to say it to you, that you'd convince me to stay, or you'd follow me to keep me safe, and I had to…." She sighs. "I just _had_ to. I can't explain it. After the Wolves…and how easy all that killing was for me…I just _had_ to."

"Left yer family," he mumbles.

"The family that banished me, you mean?" she asks. "Back at the prison?"

Daryl studies her eyes over the rim of his whiskey glass, takes a small, slow sip, and swallows. "I didn't know nothin' 'bout that. I didn't have any say in that. _No one_ had any say in that. 'Cept Rick."

"But no one came looking for me either."

"Soon as I found out, we got attacked by the Governor. Didn't have a whole lot of time to come lookin'." Daryl takes his arm off her and rubs his hand across his mouth roughly. "After that… we all got split up…looked for ya. Looked for _everyone_. But I thought me 'n Beth…thought we were it. Last two people on earth."

"Rick told me Tyrese would kill me if he found out. That _no one_ back home would want me."

"Rick lied."

"I wouldn't say he lied. He _believed_ what he said. He thought he was doing the right thing. Just like I did when I…" Carol doesn't want to say what she did. "But Rick didn't _consult_ people. That wasn't the first time he made a unilateral decision, and it certainly wasn't the last. That's what I love about the Kingdom. Ezekiel has his advisors, and he takes our input very seriously."

"Really? He didn't keep secret his deal with the Saviors?"

"Not from his inner circle, he didn't. And that was well before the Advisory Council was formed."

"Hilltop's got a Council, too, ya know," Daryl says.

"And how seriously does Maggie take the Council's input?"

"She's still learnin' to delegate," Daryl admits. "But we vote on some stuff. Trade deals got to be 4 out of 5 to pass for one. Listen, Maggie ain't Rick. 'N the Hilltop ain't the farm. It ain't the prison. Ain't Alexandria. 'S it's own thing. 'N it's a good thing. If ya spent more time there…ya'd realize it."

"Well, I'll be there this Saturday for the wedding."

"Don't go back Sunday mornin'. Stay a week or two."

Maybe she was wrong in her assumption. Maybe Daryl doesn't want this to be a once-a-week love affair. But now that he's put the ball in _her_ court… "And do what?" she asks. "All of my responsibilities are here. Henry is here. My advisory role is here. My _kitchen_ is here."

"Fine!" he mutters and stands. He walks over to the desk and bangs the whiskey glass down on it. What little liquid is left sloshes up the sides. "Just stay the night 'n go back Sunday mornin' then." He pulls the cap off the whiskey with a pop and pours a little more. "'S what ya want anyhow. All yer damn friends are here. Got yer _choir_ practice." He sets the bottle back on the desk with a clank and picks up the glass. "Can't miss _that_." He takes a big sip.

"Well, why don't you stay _here_ a few days?" Carol asks. "Why do _you_ have to go back tomorrow morning?"

"'Cause I got to hunt! Feed the whole damn place! 'Cause what I do there's _important_!"

Carol stands from the loveseat and levels her cool blue eyes at him. "I see," she says. "And what I do here's _not_."

Daryl shakes his head. "Didn't say that. Don't do that. Don't go puttin' goddamn words in my mouth."

"Well, I guess we got to have a fight after all."

Daryl leans back against the desk and sets his whiskey down atop it. "Don't wanna fight."

"Neither do I, particularly."

He crosses his arms over his chest. "So now what?"

She sighs. "I think what normal couples do is… _compromise_."

"How?" he asks.

"I'll stay an extra day at the Hilltop after the wedding. I need to leave Monday afternoon so I'm back by the evening. I teach a knife throwing class on Monday evenings. And on Tuesdays and Fridays I have advisory meetings. I also give math lessons at the school Monday through Friday. Stephanie can probably substitute for me Monday, but I don't want her teaching the kids two days in a row. She's not as on top of them as I am."

"Didn't know ya taught math."

"Two times a day, thirty-five minutes each session, to two different age levels. And I'm also available for tutoring on Wednesdays. And of course I help with the cooking most nights. So one and half extra days is about the most I can stay."

He nods. "A'ight."

"Then maybe you can reciprocate by figuring out a time when _you_ can stay in the Kingdom for an extra day or two."

He scratches his cheek. "After Liam's settled 'n and he's huntin' for the Hilltop, might could get away an extra day. Sunday after next, when I come for falconry lessons…I'll stay 'til Tuesday mornin' stead of Monday mornin'."

"That sounds fair." She sits back down on the loveseat at pats the cushion beside her.

He slides his whiskey glass off the desk and joins her hesitantly. "We done fightin'?"

She lays her head on his shoulder. "For now."


	31. Chapter 31

**_[Sunday Night]_**

"Not so hard!" Carol cries. "Gentle, please. You're going to break it off."

Daryl eases up. The crank arm of the phonograph goes round and round more gently now, and when he lets go and drops the needle, classical music floods out of the crackly speakers.

The fire in the wood stove has begun to wane. As Carol turns down the covers, Daryl watches her. She's wearing a Washington Redskins football jersey. It falls teasingly to her thighs, and he thinks it's about the sexiest piece of lingerie he's ever seen.

The room is a haze of faint starlight and moonlight now. He can just make out the glow in her eyes as she crawls into bed. He slides in beside her, and she slides against him, melding to him. Carol starts with a light, teasing kiss on his earlobe.

He's never had sex to classical music before. Only hard rock. He's not a sex genius, or an expert on women, but he thinks maybe this means she wants it slowly tonight. Reassurance, and not angry make-up sex, is what she's looking for. Her teeth rake over the sensitive flesh of his earlobe, and he shivers.

Patience is not his expertise, either, but he forces himself to slow down, and he's glad he does, because it gives him a chance to truly savor her. He takes his sweet time undressing and exploring her, and she does the same.

Carol mentioned wanting to be on top earlier, but after that fight, he wants to cover her up, possess her...and she allows him. He presses her into the mattress beneath him with each tender thrust. Carol whimpers and murmurs, her hands trailing up and down his back while his lips gently explore every inch of flesh they can still reach.

They aren't panting as hard as usual when they're done, but they're both satisfied. The music has petered out, and the needle retracts itself form the record. The singing of the Kingdom's crickets takes its place. Carol is warm and perfectly naked when she snuggles against him and rests her head on his chest.

In the stillness of the aftermath of sex, Daryl's mind begins to wander.

"What are you thinking?" she asks at last.

"Thinkin' 'bout that fight we just had," he admits. "Felt like I was gonna blow up for a minute there. Just…explode on ya."

"You didn't."

"I dunno how to do this, Carol. This grown-up relationship shit."

"I don't know how to do it either. I didn't exactly come out of a healthy marriage. And I'm sorry if I sometimes let that cloud my judgment…If I let it make me worry so much about losing myself that I don't _give_ enough of myself."

He tries to find words to express the uneasiness he's feeling. The best he can come up with is - "Dunno what ya need me for."

"You make me feel strong," she says quietly.

"Nah. 'S all you, Carol. Ya did all that. Went from wallflower to badass like ya was going from zero to sixty."

"I didn't do it alone. Who taught me to shoot? Who taught me to stab? Who taught me to trap? Who insisted I should be on the prison council? Who told me, when I didn't want to kill that walker child, that I didn't _have_ to? That it _didn't_ make me weak?"

"That was then. Now…" He swallows. He rests a hand on the small of her back. "Ya got yer shit together, woman. Earned yerself a place of respect here in the Kingdom, all on yer own. Dunno what you need me for anymore."

She raises her head and slides up until they're face to face, which makes him look at her. "I used to be needier," she admits. "But I grew up. So did you. We grew up together. What if now I don't _need_ you so much as _want_ you? I thought I needed Ed. I thought if I ever left him, I'd never survive on my own. I thought I wasn't good enough to make it on my own. I _needed_ him, but I never _wanted_ him. I don't want to need a man anymore. But for the first time in my life, I finally _want_ one. I want you, Daryl." She caresses his cheek with the back of her hand. "So much."

He gnaws on his bottom lip and his eyes flit away.

"I want this to work," she says quietly. "Somehow. Please?"

He sits up partially, puts a hand at the back of her head, and presses her forehead down against his. "Love ya, Carol," he whispers. He kisses her gently. "We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna learn how to do this shit. Both of us. Together."

She sniffles, blinks away the mist in her eyes, and nods.

"C'mere," he says and pats his chest as he lays his head back down on the pillow. She snuggles in against him. He can feel a single tear, warm against his shoulder. He wraps her up tightly in his arms. She relaxes into him, and that makes him relax into the mattress beneath them. His eyelids grow heavy.

Sleep comes quickly, and the morning comes too soon.

 ** _[Monday]_**

For a change, Maggie isn't pouring over papers at her desk when Daryl comes into her study-bedroom. She's sitting on the floor at the coffee table and helping Glenn, Jr. to put together a puzzle with giant wooden pieces with handles.

Daryl drops an envelope on the coffee table. "Ain't sure when _I_ became the pony express." He's already delivered letters to Tara, Enid, and Rosita.

"Well the pony express only comes through once a week," Maggie tells him. "I guess we should make practical use of your visits."

Daryl nods to Roland's letter. "'N 's that a practical communication?" he asks.

She smiles. "If you consider an ongoing discussion over a novel we both recently read to be practical, then yes."

"Didn't know ya read books." He's never seen her just lounging around in the library with a book in her hands.

"I have trouble sleeping. Sometimes reading helps."

"Whee-whee-wheee!" mini-Glenn cries as he attempts to slam the police car into the open space on the puzzle board. The kid has never heard a siren in his life, but someone must have told him that's the sound a police car makes. Probably Rick. Daryl winces at the thought. He misses Rick sometimes, and it aches like the pain in a phantom limb.

"It's weird," Maggie says looking down at the puzzle, which also has an ambulance and fire truck, a movie theater and a restaurant, "to think this world is normal to him, that it's all he's ever known or ever will know. Everything that was a part of our old lives…." She shakes her head. "It's going to vanish into the realm of legend. If it survives at all. All these things in this puzzle…we're never going to see them again."

Glenn picks up the motorcycle piece. "Vwooom….vwooom….vwooooom!" he slams it into the puzzle.

Daryl smiles. "Don't know 'bout that."

[*]

Before he goes hunting, Daryl deposits the mason jars full of bacon grease in the root cellar. He'll have to melt and render it later, when he's got his bike together, but today's priority is hunting. He stays out well past sunset, and holes up in the deer blind he built in the spring. He doesn't like this kind of sit-and-wait hunting. He prefers to track. But with the pile of acorn bait he's left out, he knows this is his best chance of bagging more than one at a time.

He returns with two deer for the smokehouse. His dinner has grown cold – an egg scramble heavily padded with the Hilltop's vegetables and the Kingdom's potatoes – and – God he's getting sick of it – _a side of_ _corn_. But he scarfs it down. He wonders what Carol would do with the corn to make it more palatable.

The sun is about to set, and it will soon be too dark to go outside the gates to practice the longbow, so he decides to tinker with his motorcycle instead. He lights the fire in the oil barrel, and then he slaps the engine up on his crude workbench in front of his tent.

His fingertips are black with grease when Maggie stops by and sets a bottle of whiskey down on the planks of his tent.

"'S that?"

"Your whiskey."

"Checked both my bottles out already."

"Well, you deserve a third. Good job on those deer this afternoon. _Two_."

He grunts in acknowledgment, sets down his wrench, picks up a screw driver, and flips the part he's working on over.

Maggie sits down on the planks. "What's all this?" she asks. "Are you building something?"

"If I told ya, ya'd just get pissed off 'n tell me I's wastin' time I could be usin' to hunt."

Maggie crosses her arms over her chest. "Look, Daryl, I'm aware I've been kind of a bitch."

Daryl stops turning the screw driver. He peers up and over at her. "That so?"

"That's _is_ so. It's a lame excuse, but I'm worried. All the time. And the worst of it is…I'm worried about so many _little_ things. It used to be all we had to worry about was getting wiped out by a herd of walkers or gunned down by Saviors."

Daryl grunt-laughs.

"But do you know what I mean at all?"

"Mhm. Ya get used to livin' like that. 'N then when it gets quiet…n' it _stays_ quiet…yer brain starts makin' up all sorts of new shit to worry 'bout."

"In a weird way, the little things are more exhausting than the big things. But you were right. Taking a little time off…spending a little more time with Glenn…I'm starting to remember what I'm doing all this _for_. What _we're_ doing all this for. I haven't been fair to you lately. And I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"

" _Forgive_ you?" He laughs. "Given the mountain of shit we've all had to forgive each other over the past few years…hell, that ain't nothin'."

She nods at the parts. "So?"

"Ah, buildin' me a bike's gonna run on bacon grease."

Maggie's face freezes in a dubious expression, but she doesn't say anything negative. Instead, she stands. "Good luck."

It seems like only ten minutes have passed - though it's probably been an hour - when Rosita stops by and plops herself down on the wooden platform of his tent, between the open canvas flaps. She has a hardback book in her hand. She holds it up. "Look what I found this afternoon in the mansion's library."

Daryl lays down his tool wipes his hands with a rag. "Ya found a book? In the lieberry? Fascinatin'."

"Not just any book." She turns the cover toward him.

He creeps closer to read it: _Songs of the Soul_ by Khalid Abdullah Ahmad. "That yer boyfriend's book?"

"First of all, he's not my boyfriend. And second of all, check this out." She turns to the _About the Poet_ page and shows him the photo of a clean-shaven, shorter-haired, younger version of Khalid. He's holding a toddler, and at his side stand two more children who appear to be three and four. The caption reads, _Known as the "plumber poet," Khalid Abdullah Ahmad, single-father of three, is pictured with his family outside their townhome in Baltimore, Maryland._

"What 'bout it?" Daryl asks.

"Three. He had _three_ kids. As a _single-father_. And he's _never_ mentioned it."

"Probably 'cause they're all dead."

"I didn't even know he's ever been married!"

"Told me his wife divorced 'em," Daryl says, though he wonders how Khalid managed to get custody of the kids. He never knew a man to get custody of the kids in his neighborhood, except Mr. Hamilton. He got his two boys in the divorce, but that was only because their crazy mama was in jail for chasing them all around the dirt street with an axe. She planted that axe straight in the shoulder of the youngest one before two men in the neighborhood could manage to tackle her. That was the first and only time Daryl can remember anyone ever breaking the unspoken backwoods rule that you don't call the cops on your neighbor.

"Why do you know this and I don't?" Rosita practically shouts. "I can't believe he didn't tell me any of this!"

"Hell 're you so angry about?" he asks.

"I don't know. I guess I'm realizing he hasn't really told me _anything_ about himself. I'm starting to think he's just using me for sex."

Daryl's brow furrows. "Ain't that what yer usin' _him_ for?"

Rosita ignores the question. "I'm also a little worried about his fertility now, to be frank. Those kids can't be more than eighteen months apart each. It seems like he can get a woman pregnant just by _looking_ at her. I don't think I can rely on him to keep pulling out. We're going to have to start doing - "

"- Don't need the details!" Daryl interrupts.

She nods to the bike frame he's working on. "How's the bacon bike coming along?"

"Gettin' there," he mutters. "Gettin' there."

Rosita thankfully leaves, but it's not five minutes - or, well, maybe forty-five minutes, he's not sure - before Tara stops by on her way back to her small room in the mansion after getting off watch. Fortunately, she doesn't sit down on the platform of the tent. She just pauses and asks, "Ready for the rematch with Dianne?"

He grunts. No. He's not ready. He needs to _practice_.

"I want you to take home the win for the Hilltop," Tara says, "But I think part of me is really going to enjoy watching my girlfriend kick your ass."

Daryl glowers. Tara smiles, says goodnight, and walks on.

 _Finally_. Peace and quiet. He begins to hammer a piece of metal flat. The tent flap behind him flies up. "Daryl," his neighbor hisses. "Seriously, man, my wife is trying to _sleep_."


	32. Chapter 32

**_[Tuesday]_**

Daryl pages through the keys on his ring, past the pantry key, a handcuff key, the key to his old motorcycle, and the supply shed key until he finds the key for the armory's padlock. One of the benefits of being Maggie's right hand man is that he's trusted with the spare keys to everything.

The chains jangle and clank as he slides them from the iron handles of the basement door. He clicks on his Maglite and beings to make his way down the dark, narrow stairs. When he's in the basement, the light from the high window is sufficient, and he clicks off his flashlight. Few batteries work anymore, after having been exposed to extremes of temperature over several summers, but last spring, they found a stash that was well-stored in a root cellar. The alkaline ones might last in storage another two years, the lithium for four. Maggie doesn't like Daryl to use them. They're like gold reserves – intended for trade to the Kingdom and Oceanside if food ever becomes too scarce at the Hilltop.

Daryl doesn't have a longbow of his own, but there was a Hilltop man who used a longbow in the War with the Whisperers. That man didn't survive. Daryl hopes that has more to do with his shooting skills than with the quality of his bow. He takes the weapon down from the wall, examines it, and decides it needs a new string.

He walks along the shelves until he finds the bow parts. Between the War with the Saviors and the War with the Whispers, before the last of the gas had spoiled, he and Rick looted a sporting goods store. It had been cleaned out of most of the guns, bows, knives, ammunition, and arrows by earlier looters, but no one had been thinking about _parts_ back then. The Hilltop now has shelves and shelves of firearm and bow parts, two ammunition reloading presses, and a decent crossbow press.

Daryl finds the package he's looking for and tears it open with his teeth. When he's done re-stringing the bow, he signs out a glove.

[*]

"Ms. Flannagan?" Thomas asks. "In number 6, shouldn't X equal 3?"

Carol looks over the homework equations and answers she's written on the chalkboard. Her mind has been drifting. She's been composing a letter to Daryl in her head, because she knows the pony express will pass through tomorrow from Oceanside to the Kingdom to the Hilltop and then back again on Thursday. "Yes, I'm sorry, I was multiplying instead of dividing." She roughly erases the answer and writes in 3. "Now everyone check all your answers and let me know if you have any questions."

Henrietta raises her hand. "I have a question, Ms. Flannagan."

"What's that?"

"Shouldn't number 10 be _negative_ two?"

[*]

Daryl opts for bird hunting instead of deer hunting today – more targets to practice with that way. A moving target, he finds, is far more challenging than the stationary ones at the tournament. But having a target that means putting meat on his family's table gives him extra motivation.

His longbow skills improve dramatically by the late afternoon. Unfortunately, the learning curve is steep, and he returns with only three grouse and a crow.

Andy and Lisa, however, have managed to bag their first deer without his help. It's small, but he congratulates them.

[*]

Roland waves a hand in front of Carol's face. "Earth to Carol."

"Sorry," she says. "What were we talking about?"

"The small community our scout spied," Ezekiel tells her, "living at the Washington D.C. Temple."

"Temple?" Carol asks.

"The old Mormon Temple," Nabila explains. "It's actually in Maryland."

Carol's full attention is with the Council now. "How many?"

"The scout couldn't tell," Roland says. "He surveyed it by binoculars from a deer stand he found in some trees over a mile away. The whole Temple is heavily surrounded by a circle trees. Outside that circle is cleared earth, but they've erected a fence in that clearing all around the trees. And they've put up barricades at all the roads leading to that fence. From his vantage point, he couldn't make out the grounds, but he could see the Temple rising above the trees and saw the rooftop was lined with gardens. Around the gardens was a perimeter of slanted solar panels. It looks like they've also somehow attached wind turbines to the golden spikes and are maybe generating electricity that way, along with the solar panels. He watched for three hours, but never counted more than ten people coming onto the roof from the Temple."

"How heavily armed?" Carol asks.

"He wasn't able to make out any armed guards."

"That doesn't mean they aren't there," she replies.

"No, it certainly doesn't," Roland agrees. "The community looks well established."

"That's only, what? Twelve miles from the Kingdom?" Nabila says. "How have we never found it before?"

"The world is big. Even bigger since the gas spoiled," Ezekiel replies. "We just haven't scouted in that precise area yet. Now that we have, however, we need to discuss approaching and inviting them to trade with us."

" _If_ we do that, we better approach with armed men hidden in the periphery," Carol replies, "in case they aren't friendly. Our ambassadors approach the front gate, hands up, but the knights lay low, armed and ready."

"So when should we do this?" Ezekiel asks. "Next week after Liam and Enid's wedding? And before mine?"

"I don't know," Carol says. "I think we should watch them longer. Get a better idea of how big they are, what their resources are, and how they interact with each other before we just stroll up to their gates."

Jerry agrees, "I say we approach them in the worst part of winter."

"Why winter?" Nabila asks. "It'll be much harder to travel then."

"Exactly." Jerry grins. "If things go bad, they aren't going to chase us through the snow and the ice. If they drive us off, that'll probably be enough for them. There won't be much risk of drawing them back to the Kingdom."

Nabila smiles. "It's a clever consideration, Big Bear, but I'm afraid I have to disagree. I think we should approach sometime next week. Trade almost grinds to a halt in winter. If we're going to trade with them, we should do it _soon_. In _preparation_ for the winter. And approaching in winter…perhaps they won't follow us if we have to retreat, but the retreat isn't going to be easy either. And if they _are_ friendly, hauling goods isn't going to be easy in winter."

"So shall we vote?" Ezekiel asks. "Between next week and late winter?"

"No," Roland says. "Those aren't the only two choices."

Ezekiel raises an eyebrow. "And your idea is…"

"My idea is we don't approach them _at all_. Ever."

"Ever?" Ezekiel echoes.

"Why should we? We have peace here now. We'll have had it for a _full year_ come Thursday. We've grown. We've flourished. We have a large enough alliance. We shouldn't do anything whatsoever that might risk jeopardizing that. What if we introduce ourselves and they decide they want to conquer the Kingdom? What if they shoot down our ambassadors on the spot? That's two lives we loses right then and there." He snaps his fingers.

"What do you think, Carol?" Ezekiel asks.

Carol turns to Roland. "You say we've grown and flourished, and we have. But we didn't grow by not giving anyone a chance. We've taken in refugees, as you very well know."

"I am immensely grateful to the Kingdom for having taken me and Liam in sixteen months ago. But we were only two men. And we knew you would have banished us instantly if we caused trouble."

"But we still risked it," Carol reminds him. "You might have killed one or more of us in the middle of the night."

Roland sighs. "It's not the same. We've never taken in a group of more than four people at once. And this isn't taking people in. It's approaching an established community. Possibly a heavily armed community."

"Where would we be today if the Hilltop had never approached Alexandria? If Alexandria had never approached Oceanside?" Carol asks.

"From what I've heard, there were a lot of deaths before those alliances were solidified. Maybe you'd all still be alive in Alexandria, with power and hot running water, like in the old world."

"Or maybe all of our communities would still be ground beneath the heel of the Saviors," she replies. "I think we should approach, but I don't think we should approach until we know a lot more about them. And if we learn something that suggests we should _not_ approach…I'm open to revising my opinion."

"They'll likely find us on their own one day," Nabila reasons. "The Temple is only twelve miles north of us. That's even closer than the Hilltop."

"They may," Roland agrees, "but if they do, we'll be playing defense, and our defenses are strong."

In the end, the Council decides to have a rotation of scouts observe the community for the next twelve days and then meet again to discuss if and when to approach. "And if we decide to approach, we can inform Hilltop and Oceanside," Ezekiel concludes.

"We need to inform them _now_ ," Carol insists. "They need to know this community exists."

Roland laces his fingers together atop the brown, circular table and leans forward. "They may not want to follow our plan. Better we wait to inform them until _we've_ decided if _we_ wish to approach. That puts us in control of the situation."

Carol shakes her head. "I don't like that. I don't like keeping secrets from our trading partners." And she especially doesn't like the idea of keeping secrets from _Daryl_. "It isn't right. Both Oceanside and Hilltop are entitled to know. We _share_ information."

"I agree with Carol," Nabila says. "We're a defensive alliance as well as a trading alliance. That's the _point_. They need to know there's another community out there."

"I don't know," Jerry replies cautiously. "Roland and Ezekiel are right, I mean…what if Hilltop or Oceanside jumps the gun?"

"What if they go out there before we agree to," Roland says, "and those people turn out to be enemies? And they capture the Hilltop representatives or the Oceanside representatives and torture them, and they find out about the wealth of the Kingdom and come after _us_?"

"A show of hands," Ezekiel says. "All in favor of telling the other communities?"

Carol and Nabila raise their hands.

"All opposed?"

Roland and Jerry raise theirs.

"My Advisors are evenly divided. I must break the tie. We will wait to inform the other communities until we have decided whether or not we desire to approach."

Carol crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. "I can't go along with that."

"It's been decided, Carol," Ezekiel tells her. "You were outvoted."

"Do you really propose to keep this information secret from Tyra?" she asks him. "How do you think your Oceanside bride will react to that when she finds out you have?"

"She'll understand," Ezekiel replies calmly.

"Well, I'm not sure Daryl will. And I'm not comfortable keeping this from him. And I wouldn't be too sure about Tyra's reaction, either."

"Tyra knows my loyalty is to the Kingdom and its interests," Ezekiel says, "and, soon enough, so will hers be. I might ask, however, given that you seem unwilling to accept the verdict of the Council and the privacy of our deliberations – where _your_ loyalty lies."

Jerry and Nabila exchange nervous glances.

"I can't believe you would ask me that, Zeke. After _everything_ I've done for this community in the War against the Whispers, and before that, in the War against the Saviors. After everything I've done for the Kingdom since then – guarding its walls, cooking its meals, training its knights in knife fighting, teaching its children."

"I apologize," Ezekiel hastens. "But you _know_ the rules of procedure. The Council rules keep us honest, and they must apply consistently to do so. I can't just bend the rules for – "

"- I want to change my vote!" Jerry interrupts. "Yeah…um…" He raises his hand. "I'm for it. I'm for telling the other communities."

Nabila beams at him and Roland sighs.

"Are you certain?" Ezekiel asks.

Jerry lowers his hand slowly to the table. "Yeah. We should tell them."

"Roland?" Ezekiel asks him. "Would you care to offer any further arguments against the position?"

Roland rubs his eyes. "I came to the Kingdom later than any of you, but I am deeply grateful for it. I've lived through only one war here. But I've listened to the legends of Alexandria, of Oceanside, of the Hilltop, and of the Kingdom. I've listened to the history of your conflict with the Saviors. And I wonder…I wonder if you've truly _learned_ from it. I wonder if you've learned to leave well enough alone. If our scout had never spied this community, our world would have continued as before. But now, even now, even here," he stabs a finger against the table, "it's already causing conflict among us."

"This is hardly the first time we've had conflict at this table, Roland," Carol reminds him.

"I submit to the procedures and rulings of this Council," Roland replies, "but I want to register my dissent. I think we should tell no one of this community and have nothing to do with it. I think we should swear the scouts and the Council to silence, and behave as though this Temple colony never existed. I think we should leave shut Pandora's box."

[*]

At the Hilltop, a different Council meeting is unraveling. Aaron opens a folder, draws out some papers, and pushes them across the dining room table to Maggie. "I think we'll be fine on vegetables and corn through mid-March. We'll have to rely on only what the greenhouse yields for a month after that, but by mid- April we should have some spring crops."

Maggie looks the numbers over. "Well done," she says. Then she turns her attention to Daryl. "And the smokehouse?"

"Haven't run the 'zact numbers, but…with what we've caught 'n the dried fish we traded Oceanside for…enough for four weeks."

"That only gets us to January," Father Gabriel says.

"February. Can still hunt in December. 'N November ain't over yet. Liam'll be here soon, add to the storage. Gonna be _fine._ "

"I hate to say this…" Rosita leans forward at the table. "…because Daryl keeps me from going insane on watch. But you really need to take him off his three assigned nights of watch. There's plenty of other people who can do that. If he gets to sleep earlier, he can get up earlier, get positioned earlier, and he can hunt longer before sunset."

"Daryl?" Maggie asks.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Could use a break from watch."

"Okay, then."

"I'd gladly volunteer," Father Gabriel says with a smile, "but…."

[*]

Later that night, Tara pauses by Daryl's tent and asks, "What are you _doing_?"

Daryl stands up from his hunched position and drops the sandpaper on the platform. "Just sandin' off some rough edges."

"Why?"

She has a point. He's never much cared how the platform looked before. But he's been thinking…he's going to have a _girl_ over. And Carol's got that sweet trailer, with the wood stove, the pantry, a queen-size bed, breakfast table, love seat, coffee table, nightstands, wardrobe….What he's got is going to look like shit by comparison: a cot, a table, a camp chair, some canvas flaps, and a fire in an old oil barrel outside. "Carol's stayin' the weekend."

"Ohhhh…." Tara looks over the tent. "Where's she going to _sleep_? That cot barely fits _you_."

"Figure somethin' out," he says casually, but when Tara's gone, he looks over his rustic tent and kicks the platform in anger.


	33. Chapter 33

**_[Wednesday]_**

Carol drops a sealed envelope into the black mailbox to the left of the front door of the school and puts up the rusted red flag. Khalid mounts the stairs behind her. A rapier riding his left hip, and the hilt of a long sword rising from beneath the pack on his back, he slides his own letter into the mailbox.

"For Rosita?" Carol asks.

"I had to tell her I can't make it this weekend, but I invited her to come to the Kingdom next weekend, when Daryl comes to see you." Ezekiel, wanting to rest the scout who returned yesterday, is sending Khalid to monitor the Temple for a few days. "I've left my senior apprentice in charge of the well project while I'm gone. He's learned quickly, which is a good thing if I get killed."

"You're not going to get killed," Carol assures him.

"Perhaps I'll be caught and ravished by insatiable maidens who force me into their Temple harem."

Carol laughs. "Be safe."

As Khalid descends the stairs, the front door to the school opens, and Roland emerges. He deposits an envelope in the mailbox. "Morning, Carol."

"Good morning," she says, with a hint of peevishness in her voice. She understands why Ezekiel brought Roland onto the Advisory Council. While he didn't join the Kingdom until a few months after the War with the Saviors, he proved his courage, loyalty, and strategic skills in the War with the Whispers. Carol respects him, but they've been at loggerheads more than once, and she's still irritated he expected her to lie by omission to Daryl.

Roland nods over her shoulder. Carol turns to see Dianne walking toward the stairs, her longbow and quiver strapped to her back, looking weary after having been away on a two-day hunt. "Any luck?" Roland asks her.

"We got two wild turkeys and ten pheasant." She comes to a stop at the top of the stairs. "Did I miss anything important at the Advisory meeting yesterday?"

Roland and Carol exchange glances. "We better fill you in," Carol tells her, and nods to the door of the school.

[*]

Daryl takes the longbow to hunt again, but he brings down twice as many birds this time. After he's deposited them with the butcher, he heads outside the gates and sets up a long-range target to practice shooting before dinner. He works on improving his aim until he sees the pony express thundering to the front gate of the Hilltop.

There's a letter from Carol, which he's eager to read, but Judith tugs him to dinner. "Sit with me, my Daryl. It's been days and days!"

It was only Monday and Tuesday he wasn't back in time to eat dinner with her, but he doesn't say so. Aaron is at their picnic table, too, with Gracie, Tara, and Jesus. Jesus grumbles about his man at Oceanside, who has been cheating on him with one of the women there. "I didn't know he was _bi_ ," Jesus insists.

"Where'd you think those two kids of his came from?" Tara asks.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out," Aaron tells Jesus, but he doesn't _look_ sorry at all. Maybe all that _Jesus is not my type_ stuff he was telling Daryl was a bunch of sour grapes.

Two tables down, Maggie and Rosita are earnestly reading their letters. An angry expression passes over Rosita's face, and a concerned one over Maggie's. Daryl considers taking out his own letter, but Judith distracts him. "…Candy Land, my Daryl?"

"Nah. _No more_ Candy Land! Play ya some checkers, though."

"After dinner?"

" _Tomorrow_. Got a Council Meetin'."

There's no time for Daryl to read his letter between dinner and the Council meeting. Around the formal dining room table in the mansion, Maggie informs them that Ezekiel has written about a community discovered living in the Latter Day Saints' D.C. Temple in Maryland.

"Khalid didn't mention that _at all_ in his letter," Rosita says.

"He may not know. Or he may not be at liberty to disclose it to you," Maggie says. "And we need to keep this information at this table." She sweeps a finger around the Council and pauses on Rosita. "So no telling Khalid when you see him."

Rosita huffs. "Fine. It's not like _he_ tells _me_ anything. And he's not coming to see me this weekend after all. He apparently had something _better_ to do."

"Ezekiel sent a scout back out this morning to take a closer look at the Temple," Maggie continues, "and they'll keep us informed, but I think we should send our _own_ scout." She looks across the table at Rosita. "Would you be willing to head out there first thing tomorrow morning? Spend 36 hours monitoring the place? I know you'll want to be back for Enid's wedding on Saturday."

"Sure," Rosita agrees. "Do I have a map to go by?"

"We have an old map of the metro area," Maggie answers, "and the Temple's where it's always been. Ezekiel says he's positioning his scout somewhere within a mile of the perimeter, so be aware you may run into him out there."

"But is _he_ aware he may run into _me_?" Rosita asks.

"No. They don't know we're sending a scout yet. So be cautious. And don't forget to wear your armband." When they're out beyond their gates, members of the Hilltop wear red armbands, members of the Kingdom wear purple ones, and members of Oceanside wear yellow, so that if they spy an armed ally they haven't met personally, they don't mistake him or her for an enemy.

"Are we going to attempt to make contact with this community?" Father Gabriel asks. "Bring them into the trade alliance?"

"Well, that's something Ezekiel, Cyndie, and I will have to discuss when we know more," Maggie replies. "Which means I'm going to need the Council's recommendation. And I'd like it to be unanimous. So let's meet again Monday after the wedding to discuss what Rosita discovers."

The Council handles some more mundane business, and it's twenty minutes before Daryl can get out of the dining room, but he doesn't escape the mansion. Judith is in the library warming up by the fire and begs him for stories when she sees him walking by.

The pony express lady – _Ellen_ , Daryl reminds himself – is in the library, too, since she'll be spending the night there before returning through the Kingdom to Oceanside. She's already dozed off on the couch, her pack and rolled-up sleeping bag still sitting on the floor. This library is the official "guest bedroom" for travelers and traders who are passing through, though some of the people in the Hilltop tents crowd in on the worst nights of winter to sleep shoulder to shoulder before the fireplace.

Ellen lets out a light snore, which makes Judith giggle as she runs to the bookcase to select a book. The original books in the library were mostly old, worn, leather-bound classics, but they've accumulated many more over the last three years and piled them on top of and in front of the historic volumes. Judith selects a book by Shel Silverstein, called _The Missing Piece Meets the Big O_ , and climbs into Daryl's lap in the rocking chair by the fire.

He's just finished his second read-through of the book when Aaron shows up in the entry way with Gracie by his side. "Ah, here you are!" he exclaims. "Come on, Judith, time to brush teeth."

Judith gives her Daryl a kiss on the cheek before sliding off his lap.

Back in the privacy of his own tent, sitting in his solitary camp chair, with the oil lamp glowing on his TV-tray-style table, Daryl tears into his letter.

 _Dear Pookie,_

 _Our scout has spied a community living in the old Mormon Temple in Maryland. Maggie will have received all the details from Ezekiel, so if you haven't already talked to her about it, you better do so. I'm sure we'll talk about it more in person this weekend._

 _Henry has now signed up for the Kingdom choir because Elizabeth is in it, so I've decided not to. I don't want to be that parent. Besides, my duties here really do keep me very busy, and I want to spend my free time training with my knives and rifles. _

_I'm glad you talked to Henry, even if you might have scared him a little. You may have been cruder than I would have liked, but I asked you to talk to him for a reason. I knew you'd be direct, get the message across, and say things I can't possibly say to him. He's just at the very beginning stages now, but I remember how quickly things could pick up, back from my own high school dating days. Teenage hormones…You start something, and it's like a snowball rolling down a hill._

 _I'm looking forward to our weekend together. I suppose you'll need to do at least some hunting while I'm there. Do you want me to come with you? It's been awhile since I've done any, and I'm afraid I'm getting rusty. I promise to stay quiet and not slow you down._

 _Will you consider dancing with me at Liam and Enid's wedding reception? I know dancing's probably not your cup of tea, but all you have to do is put your arms around me and sway a little. If you don't want to, that's fine, but I'd really like it. I hope you wear your button-down charcoal shirt. That one looks so good on you. It does something to your eyes._

 _I'm excited to watch you and Dianne in this archery rematch. If you win, I'll give you a blow job Sunday night. I think I'm ready for that._

 _Love,_

 _Carol_

Daryl re-reads the last paragraph again, just to make sure he read it right. Then he folds the letter up, shoves it with the others beneath the plank below his cot, and seizes his long bow and quiver.

"Where are you going?" Jesus calls down from the watch platform along the fence when Daryl opens the front gate.

"Practice."

"In the _dark_?" asks Tara, who is also on watch.

"Gonna light a fire near the target."

"You'll draw walkers," Jesus warns.

"'I'll shoot 'em if I do."

Daryl's flickering fire draws a total of six walkers from the woods before his arm grows so tired from practice that his arrows begin to hit the outer white circle of the target. He lowers his bow, collects his arrows from the target and from the forehead of the last walker he shot, dampens the fire, and heads back to his tent to write a reply letter to Carol. It's after one in the morning by the time he slides it in the pony express lady's mail satchel, which she's left hanging from the porch railing of the mansion.


	34. Chapter 34

**_[Thursday Morning]_**

The sun is just beginning to crest over the horizon when Daryl, yawning, heads out to hunt. Rosita, rolling a dirt bike, is also exiting the gates. "Maggie ain't gonna let ya have a horse?" Daryl asks in disbelief.

"Sadly…a bike's more practical. I have to stay hidden. A horse needs water, food, space. I can bury the bike in the forest and get closer on foot." She peers curiously at the longbow on his back.

"Practicin' for my match with Dianne while I hunt," he says. "Saw wild turkey tracks."

"Killing two birds with one arrow?"

Daryl chuckles at the bad pun. Rosita smirks, mounts her dirt bike, and pedals off.

 ** _[Early Afternoon Thursday]_**

The chef's knife chops rhythmically against the cutting board. Carol sweeps the evenly sliced pieces of carrot into a bowl and lays out another carrot. Beside her, Elizabeth chops celery. The Kingdom is having a bigger dinner than usual tonight, because it's Thanksgiving day. At least, it's Thanksgiving day in the Kingdom. America's Thanksgiving fell _last_ Thursday, but America doesn't exist anymore. Today, however, was the last day the Kingdom fought with the Whispers, the day the war finally ended. The Kingdom wants to give thanks for the full year of peace that has now followed.

Roland passes by the outdoor kitchen, snags a slice of carrot, and pops it in his mouth.

Carol draws the bowl away from him and warns her apprentice Elizabeth, "Part of your job is guarding against poachers."

Elizabeth smiles.

Roland opens his jacket and draws out an envelope. "Pony express just came through. I thought you'd like to have this right away."

Carol quickly unties her apron, leaves it in a crumpled ball on the counter, and seizes the envelope. "You finish up following the recipe I wrote down," she tells Elizabeth. "Get that bird stuffed, and start roasting it right away. It's going to take hours. You'll need Andrew to help you get it on the spit. I'll be back to help baste it."

"Yes, ma'am," Elizabeth replies.

Carol hastens to her trailer, where she throws herself down on the loveseat and cuts the envelope open with her pocket knife.

 _Dear Carol,_

 _Hope these Temple folk are no truoble._

 _Rosita's going in the morning to check out the place._

 _Guess your scuot left today. W_ _ell, yesterday by the time you get this._

 _Hell, it might be tomorrow here._

 _Ben up late practicing longbow. Gonna win that match._

 _Can't WAIT to win it now._

 _But if bad things come up, you change your mind,_

 _it's OK. OK?_

 _Found wild turkey tracks today. Lots._

 _Gonna get us 2. Maybe 3._

 _Be glad to have you hunt with me._

 _And I'll save you a dance._

 _But you mite have to fight Judith for me._

 _Don't have much to say._

 _Just miss you is all._

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Daryl_

Looking forward to discovering whatever he's drawn this time, she slides the second paper behind the first. The page contains a turkey that's he's clearly made by tracing his own hand. It has a wattle that looks a little too much like a hairy ball sack, and underneath it, he's written, _Gobble! Gobble!_

Carol bursts out laughing.

 ** _[Late Afternoon Thursday]_**

Daryl gets back from hunting earlier than usual, before dinner this time, with _three_ wild turkeys. They'll all be hung in the smokehouse for winter. The cooks are already roasting the two fox Andy and Lisa brought back. Daryl's guessing it's fox and corn stew for dinner tonight, padded out by the last of the potatoes they received in trade from the Kingdom.

Since he has some free time, he's eager to practice longbow or work on his bike, but Judith waylays him and begs for that promised game of checkers. They sit in rocking chairs on the porch of the mansion, with the checker board on an upside-down, wooden barrel.

"Just like at the Cracker Barrel," he says.

"What's the Cracker Barrel?" Judith asks.

"Place my Mama always wanted to eat on Sundays. 'Cept we didn't have no money so we never could."

"Poor Daryl's mommy. Never?"

Daryl finishes laying out his checkers as he talks. "Well, when I's a boy, saved up all my money from collectin' cans 'n rakin' leaves one week and took her once. Had 'nuff money for the chicken n' dumplin's plate. She got two sides with that – fried okra _and_ collard greens. Biscuit, too. 'N I got her a piece of peach cobbler for dessert."

"What did _you_ eat?" Judith starts to lay her checkers on the wrong squares.

Daryl reaches over the table to shift her checkers to the correct squares. "I just got a glass of water, or I wouldn't of had no money for a tip. Glad I did it, too, 'cause my mama died just a few months later."

"Your mommy died when you were little, too?"

Daryl swallows hard. They don't actually know if Rick and Michonne are dead, but it's what they've told Judith. It just seemed easier that way. The couple has one grave at the Hilltop, marked by a shared cross, but nothing's buried there. "Yeah," he says quietly.

"Was your mommy nice?"

"Sometimes," Daryl says. When she was sober, which, toward the end, was less and less often.

Judith pushes a checker forward. "Was _my_ mommy nice?"

Daryl just about chokes. Rick and Michonne have now been gone a fourth of her life. She's begun to forget them. In a year, she may not remember them at all. Well hell if he's going to let that happen. "She was," he says. "Had a smile, prettiest smile I ever saw 'cept Carol's, though yer daddy'd argue with me on that. 'N she was smart, too. Smart as a whip. 'N great with a katana. That's a sword like thing, you know? 'N yer daddy was a brave man, one of the bravest I ever met. Family man, too. Would of done anythin' for his family. Had the _worst_ taste in music, though."

Judith giggles. "He did?"

Daryl pushes one of his checkers forward. "Oh it was _awful_ , the shit he used to play when we went on supply runs together. Wanted to plug my ears all up. But he had a sense of humor. Good man, yer daddy."

Judith pushes another one of her checkers forward. "Can't go there," Daryl says. "Got to move on the black." Judith moves her checker to a black space. It's not a black square that's connected to where the checker was at the start, but he lets its slide.

"How come my mommy had different skin than my skin?" she asks.

"Uh….well…." _Shit._ This has never come up before. "See…families come in all shapes 'n sizes 'n colors…and…uh –"

"- Was my big brother my skin color?"

"Ya don't remember Carl?" Daryl's shocked at first, but then realizes maybe she wouldn't. He's been _talked_ about plenty, but he's been gone almost three-fourths of her life now.

"I 'member his hat." She reaches up and puts her hand on Rick's old, worn sherriff's deputy hat, which is fraying from the rim now. It's two sizes too big for her still, but she has it balanced just right so as not to bury her eyes, at least until she puts that hand on it, and it comes straight down. "I can't see!" she cries.

Daryl reaches over and tips the hat way up on her forehead. It slides down again. Judith takes it off, slides off her rocking chair, and walks around and hangs it on the post of the chair.

"Yer big brother was the best big brother ever," Daryl tells her when she sits down again.

"Even better than yours?" She's heard him mention Merle a few times.

"Well, both our brothers risked their lives to give our people a chance." That's not technically true of Carl. He was already doomed when he lead those Alexandrians through the sewers, but Daryl prefers to think of it that way. "But yers….yers was _always_ good to ya. He's the one named ya."

"Judith?"

"Mhmhm."

"Why? Why Judith?"

"Got no idea. He just liked it I reckon." Daryl wishes he could show her the old family photo. Lori brought a bunch with her to the quarry, and one of them Rick clung to in the years to follow, but it burned up with Alexandria in the War with the Whisperers. He supposes it's for the best. He'd have to explain Lori in the photo, and Rick never got around to telling Judith about her biological mother. At less than three, she never asked. And of course no one has told her about Shane. All this is going to have to come out one day, Daryl supposes, but not today. Certainly not today. He pushes a checker forward, deliberately moving it to a spot where Judith can jump him.

She doesn't. She moves somewhere else.

"Hey," he says. "Think ya missed somethin'."

 ** _[Early Thursday Evening]_**

Rosita lies face down at the edge of the forest atop a distant hill and surveys the Temple. There are no people on the roof at the moment, and she can't see the grounds. She can't make out much because of the trees surrounding the Temple, but she can see the flourishing gardens on the rooftop, the wind turbines attached to the spikes, the solar panels, and…something else. She thinks maybe they've turned the angle Moroni into an _antenna_. Do they still have a functioning radio transmitter? And, if so, who are they transmitting _to_?

She senses a presence first, before the snap of a twig reaches her ears. Rosita drops her binoculars, rolls abruptly onto her back while seizing her rifle, and points it straight up.

 _At Khalid._

The knight's rapier is drawn, and the tip is an inch from her barrel.

"Jesus!" she cries.

"You're lucky I was friendly."

" _You're_ lucky _I_ was friendly." Rosita sits up. "I had the drop on you."

"I don't think so." Khalid sheaths his rapier. "I'm pretty sure I had the drop on you. Who was standing and who was lying down?" He reaches out a hand and pulls her up.

Dusting herself off, Rosita walks a little into the obscuring woods. "I really don't think that sword was going to stop a .243 round."

"What are you doing here?" he asks as he follows her into the forest.

"The same thing as you, I imagine. I was sent to scout."

"I didn't know you were a scout," he says.

She stops walking and turns to face him. "Well, I didn't know _you_ were one either. You didn't say a damn thing about the Temple in your letter."

"I didn't have the authority to reveal it to you. Ezekiel said mum's the word."

"Yeah, well," she mutters, "Ezekiel told Maggie, so of course I know. I'm on the Council."

He peers at her curiously. "I didn't know you were on the Hilltop Council."

"I got elected last term. Everyone but Maggie and Daryl turned over. I've got three months left to serve. I though you were the plumber? Why are you scouting?"

"I scout part-time," he replies. "It's my secondary calling. Or my tertiary calling. I don't know. I'm a plumber and a knight and a scout."

"We don't have _callings_ at the Hilltop. We just all do the shit that needs to be done when it needs doing." She shoulders her rifle. "So what do you know?"

"You're not even going to kiss me hello?"

"We're not here for romance."

"Stingy," he mutters. He jerks his head forward. "Follow me. I'll show you another vantage point, and I'll fill you in on the way."

As he walks, he tells her he was laying low in her chosen spot yesterday and watching the rooftop. He saw nineteen different men emerge on top of it. "At least I think they're different. These men look very much alike. They're all wearing the same silly straw hats and most of them have on long-sleeve white cotton field shirts, khaki-colored field pants, and suspenders."

"Just men?"

"Just men. And older male teenagers. If they have women and children, they must keep them inside."

"Do you think they're Mormons?" she asks.

"I don't know. I suppose they could be. The Mormons were always well prepared, weren't they? I think they had to keep six months of storage food and water at all times."

"I don't know much about them."

"I worked with some once. Good family people. They had these amazing networks, too. They could travel anywhere and always find some Mormon to crash with. Who knows? Maybe as soon as it started, all the ones who survived in the D.C. metro area took their storage food to the Temple and hunkered down together."

"Did you notice the solar power and the wind turbines?"

"Yes. They've got electricity. Last night, I saw one of the windows in the Temple fully lit up. Not for long, but it _was_."

" _Damn_. And did you notice the radio antenna?"

He nods. "Makes one wonder who they're communicating with. Or _trying_ to communicate with."

"Nineteen, huh?"

"That I've seen. Though it might have been twenty-four. Like I said, hard to tell apart, and they keep coming on and off that roof."

"Arms?" Rosita asks.

"They had knives on their belts, but I didn't see any guns or armed guards on the roof. But who knows how many armed guards are on the ground, behind all those trees. And to see through the trees, we would need to get _over_ the fence."

"So let's do it."

Khalid shakes his head. "I don't have the authority to get that close yet."

"Well, I have discretion to get as close as I want. Guess I'll do it on my own." She walks faster, ahead of him.

He grabs her by the shoulder. "Hey, hey. You shouldn't do that on your own."

She shrugs off his hand. "Well, if you're not coming…"

"Let's just watch them for the rest of the evening, camp out, and then in the morning, we can discuss it."

"Fine."

They walk in silence for a while, past his camp site from last night, which is surrounded by an alarm system of tin cans on barbwire. He leads her past the camp, back through the woods again, and to the edge of the trees at another plateau. "Take a look," he says.

From here, she still can't make out the grounds, but she can see a glass-covered walkway connecting to separate parts of the Temple. Three young children chase each other across it. "Kids!" she cries.

Khalid raises his binoculars eagerly. "I've been here an hour and haven't seen anyone cross yet. You must be magic."

"I guess we stay put here for a while and count how many people cross that bridge."


	35. Chapter 35

**_[Thursday Evening]_**

"Did you get all your homework done?" Carol asks Henry as they eat dinner.

"There _is_ no homework today. It's Thanksgiving. And besides, what's the point of learning all this stuff? I'm fourteen. It's time for me to be apprenticed full-time to the knights."

"Apprenticeships start at _fifteen_ ," Carol reminds him. "Until then, you _also_ need to ground yourself in math, science, and the arts."

In the Kingdom, every child's mandatory education includes music, literature, art, writing, philosophy, math, science, woodworking, sewing, cooking, agriculture, horticulture, weaponry, and hunter's safety, but the trades don't become the focus of a young man or woman until the age of fifteen, and then, every teenager must select a primary and secondary trade and serve two apprenticeships.

"Why? What's the point of the _arts_ here and now?"

"The _point_ is to make you a well-rounded individual," she replies. "All those warriors you like to read about, in ancient Japan and medieval England – the greatest ones among them weren't ignorant when it came to art, literature, and music were they?"

"How much art, literature, and music does _Daryl_ know?"

Carol glares at him. "More than you think. But that's not the point. Life is about more than survival now." There was a time when Carol hid away the children's books to teach stabbing in the prison, and although she still thinks weaponry must be a major emphasis in childhood education, she doesn't think it should be the only one. What they're building is bigger than that now.

"I'm sorry," Henry mutters. "I wasn't trying to insult Daryl. I admire him! That's my point."

Carol decides to drop that part of the subject. "And have you decided on your secondary apprenticeship?"

"I don't know. I could work with Khalid and learn about pumps and wells and plumbing, but that seems _so_ boring. I could work with Roland and learn how to repair more things. I could study under the blacksmith, but that work is _hot_."

"You could study gardening under Nabila."

"That's kind of girly."

"Girly?" Carol asks. "You know, _I_ work in the gardens ten hours a week."

"Yeah, and you're a _girl_ ," Henry reminds her.

" _Half_ of the knights work in the gardens at least a _little_ ," Carol insists.

"Because they _have_ to. I probably will to, doing grunt work. But I don't want it to be my _secondary_ apprenticeship!"

"You could always study under the master chef," she says with a smile.

"No offense, Carol, but…no. I think I'm probably going to study under the hunters. I loved the turkey hunt they let me go on, even though we didn't get anything that time." He grins and points to the turkey on his plate now. "Wish I'd been there for this hunt."

"And what weapon will you use? The staff isn't really much of a hunting weapon."

"Jerry said he'd teach me to spear. The skills should translate…sort of." He looks across the table at her hopefully. "And I thought maybe you could spend some more time teaching me to shoot a rifle better?"

"Oh, _now_ you want to take me up on that offer?"

He grins sheepishly. "I've been _busy_."

"Yeah?" Carol asks. "Busy with anyone in particular?"

"Shh!" Henry hisses and looks down the long picnic table to the end, where Elizabeth sits with her mother and father.

Elizabeth catches him looking at her, smiles, and waves. Henry flushes and waves back, quickly, before fixing his eyes on his food.

 ** _[*]_**

Rosita and Khalid lean against two trees a few feet apart. In the past hour, they've counted twelve kids (including three babies and three toddlers) and eight different women crossing that glass-covered bridge. One of the women is pregnant and wears a sturdy-looking, modest maternity dress. "Lots of kids," she murmurs.

"At least half of them born after the Collapse, by the looks of it. And still alive. That suggests a healthy, well-fed community."

"The Hilltop has had two children," Rosita notes, "three if you count Judith. How many has the Kingdom had?"

"Two. And Oceanside one. Though the father of that one is still a mystery."

"It's probably _you_ ," Rosita sneers.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because apparently you've had all sorts of kids you never told me about."

He lowers his binoculars and looks over at her. "I haven't fathered any children since the Collapse."

She lowers her binoculars and shoots him a peeved look. "I'm talking about _before_. I found your book in the Hilltop's library. I saw the photo in the back. _Three_ kids? And you never mentioned them?"

"Why would I? What have you mentioned to me? Were _you_ married? Did _you_ have children? Brothers? Sisters? A lesbian wife? I have no idea."

She returns her attention to the Temple bridge. "No husband. I was engaged once, when I was twenty, but it didn't work out. I've never had any kids. I had two brothers and a sister. My brother Juan was in college in New York when it started. I assume he's dead. My sister Maria died at the start. She left a six-year-old child behind. My brother Tomas and I kept our nephew alive and safe for two months, but when we tried to get out of Dallas because it was becoming overrun, they both died. I went on alone. Then, in Houston, I met Abraham - "

"- Abraham?" he asks. "The one Negan beat to death at the start of the War with the Saviors?"

"We used to be together. All the way from Houston to Alexandria."

"Jesus," he mutters. "And that's how you lost him?"

"No," she says quietly. "That's not how I lost him. I lost him before that. He left me for another woman. But that's how he died." She silently scours the bridge and tries to ignore the feel of Khalid's eyes on her face. "So your turn."

"I was married," Khalid replies. "I was born in the United States, but my parents were from Jordan. So was she. It was an arranged marriage of sorts."

"Seriously?"

"I mean our parents introduced us. I went with mine back to Jordan to meet her. We courted for a month. She could have said no. She didn't."

"A _month_?" Rosita asks.

A blonde woman stands on the glass-covered bridge, her back to them, looking out the other side. A man comes through and puts a hand on her hip. She kisses him for a long moment before he walks on.

"She was beautiful, and I was a virgin. I fell in love with her. I brought my bride to America, and we were happy for a while, or at least I _thought_ we were. I have no idea how long she was unhappy with me. We had three children. She abandoned us all when the baby was seven months old."

"Jesus."

"My three children….They all died at the start."

"I'm sorry," says Rosita softly.

"I'm not. I think it was better that way. They died quickly. They never had to try to survive in this world, never had to see how brutal it became. If I had kept them alive a year or two and then lost them to raiders or walkers along the way…" He shakes his head. "I think that would have been harder."

"What were their names?" she asks.

"Ibrahim Ahmad, Mohammad Zaid, and Evan Michael."

She laughs.

"By the time we had the third one, I had begun to think of their employment prospects."

Another man comes across the bridge, a different one this time, and also kisses the blonde woman. He pats her ass, says something to her, and walks on.

"Did you _see_ that?" Rosita asked. "I think she's cheating on her husband."

"Maybe they're polyandrous."

"Well isn't that stereotypical of you? Polygamous Mormons."

"Not _polygamous_ ," Khalid says. " _Polyandrous_. Where two or three men share one woman. Like in parts of Tibet where they have brother marriage. You marry one brother, you get them all."

"That's just weird. You can't be serious."

"I don't mean to say they started out that way. But counting the ones I've seen on the roof, it seems their men outnumber their women _four_ to _one_. Maybe it was a practical evolution, which kept the men from warring with one another."

"You're not serious," Rosita insists.

"In our alliance of communities, the gender balance tilts the _other_ way. Which suggests their men haven't been to war as often as ours."

Khalid, Rosita realizes suddenly, could probably have his pick of almost any single woman from Oceanside and any of the three single women at the Hilltop. The idea makes her uneasy. She sneers. " _Polyandry._ Fancy term. I suppose you're well versed in threesomes?"

He smirks. "Well, if you're ever _interested_ in a threesome…."

"Hey, if you want to get it on with me and Eduardo…."

Khalid lowers his binoculars. "You're not still seeing him, are you?"

"Hell no. He's fucking a woman at the Hilltop _and_ one at Oceanside."

"Good. I mean…not that I'm trying to _restrict_ you. But….good."

"Why?" asks Rosita, trying to maintain an air of indifference. "Who are you seeing?"

"Well….I _am_ seeing this one woman. She's gorgeous and courageous, but also a bit hotheaded. Not to mention hardheaded. She's a firecracker in bed, though."

Rosita lowers her binoculars and narrows her eyes at him.

"And I think, maybe, she's the secretly jealous type."

"Are you talking about me?" she asks.

"Yes. I'm talking about _you_."

"You're not still fucking Cassandra?"

"No. That was over a long time ago."

"Good." She raises her binoculars again. "I mean….not that I'm trying to _restrict_ you. But…good."

The sun has begun to set, and they can't watch much longer. They return to Khalid's camp and eat a late dinner.

"What if the Temple people see the smoke of our fire?" she asks.

"Almost a mile off like this? They probably won't think anything of it. Just some lone survivor out there. Or a random, natural brush fire."

"Did you notice _none_ of them had any guns?" Rosita asks. "The men all had knives on their belts, but no guns."

"It _is_ peculiar. Maybe they just keep the guns inside, and don't wear them around."

"Why wouldn't they wear them around?" she asks.

"Maybe they've never been attacked, or haven't been in years. Or maybe their grounds are littered with armed guards we haven't seen."

"We'll find out tomorrow, I guess, when we scale the fence."

Khalid eyes her warily as he screws the top onto his canteen. "I don't think we should do that. Not without direct approval from our Councils. If we scale the fence, we seriously risk being seen. Or captured."

"Well, we should at least make a round _outside_ the perimeter fence on foot. We can stay out of sight. There's woods beyond the dirt clearing that leads to the fence. We just hide in there. Take a look at the fence on ground level. Get a feel for the size of the place. Evaluate the exterior."

"I can agree to that."

Rostia stands suddenly and readies her rifle as a walker lurches from the half-barren foliage toward the barbwire that surrounds their camp.

Khalid rises and unsheaths his rapier. "I've got it." In a single graceful move, he strides forward, spears the creature in the head, and yanks his sword back out. It slumps half to the earth, pulling the wire down with it. The cans jangle. Khalid frees the creature from the barbs, and the wires snap back into place.

"Would you drag it off a ways?" Rosita asks. "I don't want to look at it all night."

"Anything for my lady." Khalid cleans his rapier with a cloth, sheaths it, and carefully crawls between the low and high rows of barbwire. He doesn't snag himself, but the cans jangle.

When he returns, Rosita has lain out her sleeping bag on the other side of the fire from his.

"Shouldn't we huddle in one bag for warmth?" Khalid asks. "I mean, we don't want to leave the fire burning all night, drawing more walkers."

Rosita rolls her eyes at him. "We're not fucking in the forest with walkers potentially all around us. But we can share your bag to stay warm."

Khalid dampens the fire.

[*]

"Fuck," Daryl mutters when he gets close enough to the target to see where his arrows have landed. None are in the red. Or even the blue. They're all in the black or the white. It's because he's been practicing too long, he supposes. They _started out_ in the red and blue. He might as well call it a day and go in and get some sleep. Or tinker with his bike.

He yanks his arrows out one by one. Jesus, who is on the wall, picks off a walker that is stumbling toward him from the north. Daryl raises his hand in thanks and goes to put out the fire.

[*]

Clothing lies bunched up at the bottom of Khalid's sleeping bag. The bag slicks back and forth over the earth as Khalid rocks inside her. Rosita arches against the hard floor of the forest, rakes her fingernails down his back, and swallows her own cry when the pleasure rips through her.

Khalid thrusts through the tail end of her orgasm, pulls out just in time, slides himself up over her stomach, and spills himself between her breasts. Groaning, he rolls off her and collapses on his side in the tight sleeping bag.

"You're getting me a towel from your pack to clean that mess up," Rosita tells him.

"Of course."

"And that's the last time I can trust you to pull out."

Khalid smiles. "That's what you said the last time."


	36. Chapter 36

**_[Friday Morning]_**

Khalid and Rosita make their way on foot to the woods directly across from the Temple's fence. They hike at the edge of the trees, staying hidden while they observe the perimeter. Black iron bars make up the fence, and barbwire is twined from pike to pike at the top. Despite the two-inch opening between bars, they can't see through to the Temple grounds because of all the evergreen trees inside. After a mile, they still haven't spied a single guard tower or a gate.

They pass a walker bumping against the fence and wait to see if it's shot from some unseen watchtower, but it's not. It just slides its grasping arm between the bars and gnashes its jaws at a squirrel on a tree branch inside. The creature stops suddenly, stumbles back, and sniffs the air. Then it turns and lurches toward the woods where they hide.

Khalid draws his rapier and begins to stride toward it, but Rosita yanks him back. "Wait," she insists. "Let it come to us. Stay out of view, in case someone is watching."

When the walker is near, he stabs it through the head and jerks his rapier back out with a grunt, and they move on.

Eventually, they find a gate in the fence. To the right of the gate are parked four pick-up trucks, three large, white vans, and five SUVs. A thick layer of dust and dirt covers the rusty vehicles, and the wild grass grows tall under their front tires near the fence. There are no recent tire tracks anywhere along the dirt clearing. A rusted padlock hangs from the corroded chains that weave through the bars of the gate.

"I think maybe they haven't come out since the gas spoiled," Khalid says.

"What are they eating for meat? There can't be _that_ much game only in the woods inside the fence."

"There's sure to be some small game at least. And maybe they have chickens."

"I haven't heard any," Rosita says.

"Perhaps they shoot birds when they fly over."

"I didn't hear any guns yesterday. Did you?"

Khalid shakes his head.

Rosita's stomach churns. "Did Carol ever tell you about Terminus?"

"What?"

"It was a community. It seemed so peaceful on the surface. They welcomed refugees. Lured them, really. And then killed and ate them." Khalid turns his eyes to hers and his cheeks puff in nauseous reaction before he swallows the air. "We barely escaped with our lives," Rosita concludes.

"Maybe they have a bunny farm," Khalid insists. "And they might be growing soy beans for protein on that roof. Or they could still have freeze-dried storage food. Some of that stuff has a shelf-life of over twenty-five years if you store it right."

"Let's keep hiking," Rosita says. "Finish the circle."

[*]

Daryl leaps over a fallen tree log, and his boots thud into a pile of forest debris. Sticks snap and leaves crunch as he pounds on. The wounded deer flees through the forest, with three of Daryl's arrows in its side. He follows the tracks on the ground until he can see the deer in the distance again. The animal slows, grows weaker, stumbles into a walk, and finally collapses to the ground.

Two walkers lurch out from behind the trees and toward _his_ deer. Daryl runs and draws at the same time. His arrow soars through the clearing in the trees and pierces the head of one walker. The other draws closer to the deer as Daryl reaches back into his quiver and reloads. He stops suddenly several yards away, aims, and shoots. The second walker's head flings back, and it crumples like a rag doll.

The hunter breathes a sigh of relief.

 ** _[Friday Afternoon]_**

Rosita and Khalid have found a spot where most of the trees inside the fence line are deciduous. Because the leaves have fallen, they can see through to the grounds. They stay hidden beneath an evergreen and focus their binoculars to peer through the gaps between the iron bars and the barren branches to the Temple grounds.

Vegetable gardens have been planted in every spot that must have once held tree, bush, and flower beds. The gardens break up the grayish-white pavement that stretches to the Temple. Rosita spies a teenage boy fishing with a net in what appears to be a large, former fountain. He comes up with something flopping in the mesh and dumps it into an open ice chest.

"Well there's the answer to your protein question," Khalid says. "They must breed fish in that fountain."

Rosita's about to ask how they keep the water filtered, but she's distracted by the sight of six children riding bicycles and tricycles along the pavement between several gardens, and four women keeping watch over them. A man sits on a picnic bench, carving something from wood, but there are no armed guards anywhere.

A sudden mist of water covers the gardens. The fountain abruptly spurts up water. Two of the children drop their bikes and begin running through the spray whenever it hits the pavement. "Holy shit!" Rosita whisper-cries. "They have a working sprinkler system! And that fountain can turn on!"

"They must run it to filter it. To keep the fish healthy."

"Where do you think the water comes from?"

"It's pumped from the Potomac maybe," Khalid replies. "Not to sound conspiratorial, but I think maybe this place was _designed_ to withstand an apocalypse."

The man who is carving stands, sheaths his knife, and leaves the unfinished wood on the picnic bench. He walks down the pavement to a little girl who sits crying on a stopped tricycle. He gets down on his haunches and appears to untie her shoelaces from the pedal. Then he stands, plucks her off the tricycle, and gives her a hug before setting her on her feet. The little girl takes off running, and the man gives playful chase down the long straight pavement toward the barren trees.

Rosita and Khalid sink back into the forest.

 ** _[*]_**

After depositing the deer with the butcher, Daryl returns to his tent, clears out everything inside it, and leaves his belongings temporarily piled on the earth beside the platform. Then he uses a dry towel to whip the dust and dirt off the planks, a wet one to scrub them down, and a dry one to dry them again. The towels are tar-black by the time he's done, and the platform only looks _slightly_ better. He throws the filthy towels in the large laundry baskets in the foyer of the mansion and heads out to the supply shed.

It takes him awhile to find what he's looking for – the boxed air mattresses they took from that Target they looted before the gas spoiled. The store had no food left, of course, but it had a lot of other things. There are four mattresses remaining – a full-size, two twins, and a queen. People in the tents generally prefer cots, because it keeps them off the platforms, but there are several air mattresses in use in the trailers and in the mansion, where people sleep two or three to a bedroom.

Daryl briefly considers taking the queen. Carol has one, after all, but a queen mattress is going to make his tent look small and cramped. The full-size is already twice the width of his cot. It'll be big enough for two, if they cuddle, which Carol likes to do. He grabs the foot-operated air pump and looks at the sheets next – ten unopened packages still in plastic wrap. He goes for the burgundy, Egyptian cotton. Daryl doesn't know what's so special about Egyptian cotton, but the price tag makes him think it's more special than regular cotton.

Next, he returns to his tent, pumps up the air mattress, and struggles to put the fitted sheet on it, but it keeps popping off one corner. "Goddamn piece of shit fucking dumbass sheet!"

"Want some help?"

Daryl looks up from his project to see Sharon watching him with an amused smile.

"Thought ya was butcherin' that deer."

"That was over two hours ago. It's almost dinner time. Do you want some? Help?"

"Mhmhm," he mutters.

Sharon makes the bed up for him and neatly smooths out the wrinkles in the sheets. "Trying to impress Carol?" she asks.

"Nah. Ain't got to impress 'er," he mutters. "Hell, Carol's slept in a prison cell 'fore."

"Really?" Sharon asks. "I guess it kind of makes sense. I mean, she does have a reputation for being unusually tough. I've heard about the Wolves. What was she in for?"

"Nah! Don't mean she's _been_ to prison! Mean we _lived_ in one. As a camp. Back in Georgia. In the first year of all this shit."

"Oh."

"Carol look like the kind of woman been to prison to ya?" he growls.

"Well…I mean…"

"Do _I_?" he barks.

She smiles. Her eyes flit up and down his form. "You don't look like a woman _at all_."

Daryl doesn't know how to respond to that so he responds with a suspicious glower.

"Relax. I'm not coming on to you," Sharon says. "Not in earnest anyway. I can clearly see that ship has sailed."

Daryl's still ticked off about her slight to Carol. "That ship was never anywhere near the dock," he growls.

"Well you don't have to be a total _ass_ about it. There wouldn't have been any harm in letting me think I at least had a _chance_ at once point." She climbs down off the platform and looks up at him standing there. "It's not easy, you know, being the _only_ woman at the Hilltop that _no_ man is chasing. And you're welcome for helping you make up the bed."

She begins to walk away.

"Hey!" he cries.

She turns back.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with ya."

She laughs. "Thanks." She walks closer to the platform. "It's just, there's two women for every straight, single man here. Eduardo would have me, but I don't think I want to jump on that well-traveled bandwagon."

"'S always Eugene."

"Eugene's…." She walks a step closer to the platform and lowers her voice. "Eugene's kind of _weird_."

Daryl flings his arm up dismissively. "'S the problem with all y'all women. Always complain' ain't no good guys left but truth is y'all just don't want one ain't hot as hell." Only after he says it does he realize that kind of implies _he's_ hot as hell. But, hell, maybe he _is_. Carol sure seems to think so. "'S also Father Gabriel. If ya ain't too good for a blind guy."

"Father Gabriel's kind of cute," Sharon says, "but there's that one small problem."

"'S that?" Daryl asks.

"You know, that part where he's a _celibate_ priest?"

"Ain't Catholic. 'S 'piscopalian. They can fuck, can't they?"

"He is?" she asks in surprise. "I thought he was Catholic?"

"Nah. Don't think so. Pretty sure that church he holed up in said 'Piscopalian."

"Huh. Well. Maybe I should go to one of his services sometime. Thanks for the advice, Dr. Phil."

She turns to walk away, and he asks, "Who the _fuck_ is Dr. Phil?"

Sharon turns back. "You ever hear of Oprah?"

"'Course I heard of Oprah."

"You ever hear of Jerry Springer?"

"Mhmhm." Merle used to watch the Jerry Springer show and make fun of all the white trash guests, as though he and Daryl hadn't grown up right next door to people just like that. As if they hadn't watched those kind of shouting matches play out in their own kitchen between their own mama and daddy every night for years.

"Well, Dr. Phil is kind of like a cross between Oprah and Jerry Springer."

Daryl's brow furrows as she walks off, but he returns to re-organizing his tent. First, he straightens his stack of hardback books and turns it into a nightstand, on which he places his oil lamp. Then he gets a second camp chair from storage and set it up on the other side of the TV-tray. It's not exactly a love seat and coffee table, but they can put a couple of drinks on the tray and sit in the chairs and talk.

He's just sat down to test the new camp chair when Tara stops by. God these women won't leave him alone. He should have lowered the flaps.

"I see you've done some remodeling," she says. "Trying to impress Carol?"

"Carol don't care," Daryl insists. "She's slept in a prison cell."

"Then why are you making so much effort?"

"Just though it was time to clean up is all."

 ** _[Friday Evening]_**

The fire crackles and pops and sends up a dusty tentacle of smoke. Khalid and Rosita sit side by side on a fallen tree log. Their boots and socks dry by the fire, wet from a creek they walked through in order to evade some walkers on the way back to camp.

" _God,_ my feet hurt," she mutters. "How many miles did we walk today?"

Khalid slides down off the log onto the sleeping bag that lines the ground, draws her bare foot over into his lap, and begins rubbing it. "You need better boots."

She moans. "That feels fantastic."

"Not too intimate for you?" he asks.

"What?"

"Me rubbing your feet. It's not too intimate for you?"

"We've fucked," she reminds him. " _Several_ times now."

"Yes, we have. But I gather fucking's not a particularly intimate act to you."

"What the hell does _that_ mean?"

"Nothing," he mutters, and works his way down the middle of her foot in satisfying circles. She wants to argue more but it feels so damn good she forgets what she wanted to argue about. After a while he says, "Other foot."

Rosita slides across the log until he's sitting between her legs. She puts one foot down on the sleeping bag and bends at the knee to put the other in his lap.

He begins to rub it. Eventually, he slides her foot out of his lap and sets it down on the sleeping bag. He looks up at her. "My turn?"

"Feet?" she asks.

"Shoulders, please."

He droops his head downward when she begins to rub. "So," she asks as she massages his shoulders, "how _intimate_ was sex for _you_ when you were fucking Cassandra?"

He sighs. "I thought I'd successfully avoided that argument."

"Nope."

"And that's like _two different_ arguments at once. You're quite good at this, really."

Rosita chuckles. "All right, screw it. I don't really want to fight right now."

"Mhmmm….Good…." Khalid closes his eyes and relaxes back into her.

"I'm going to miss Liam and Enid's wedding tomorrow," she says.

"If you leave at sunrise," Khalid assures her. "You'll be back in time. Do you have a bicycle for the road?"

"I buried it at the bottom of the hill. But, you know…maybe I don't really need to see the wedding. I mean, Enid's 18, and he's barely 21. You know it's only going to last three years."

"If they're lucky, it will only last three years," Khalid says, "instead of lasting three children."

"Or maybe we're both just a couple of cynical assholes," she says, "and it will last a lifetime."

"Maybe." He opens one eye, tilts his head back, and peers up at her. "So you don't want to hurry back for the wedding?"

She slows her rubbing of his shoulders, leans down, and kisses the top of his head. "I think I'll stay another day or two. Scout some more with you."

Khalid smiles, closes his one open eye, and droops forward again.

[*]

The oil lamp flickers on Carol's coffee table as she checks her backpack a second time to make sure she has everything she needs for her trip to the Hilltop. Through her window, which she's opened to air out the trailer after a mishap with the wood stove, she can hear the whooping and hollering of the young men drifting all the way from the gazebo in the court yard. The "young men" range in age from fourteen to twenty-seven, and Brother Ignatius has too generously supplied them with mead. She sure hopes they don't get her little Henry drunk at this stag party. He was far too thrilled to have been invited for her to try to talk him out of it.

Carol stays up late, partly because she's excited about seeing Daryl tomorrow, and partly because she's worried about Henry. Intermittently, she peeks out her own window in the direction of his trailer. Eventually, she sees him with his roommates Jake and Matt. Matt has an arm around Henry's shoulder, and one around Jake's, and the two appear to be propping him up, though Jake isn't much help because of his own staggering.

Matt slides his arms off of them both and begins to stumble-run toward the back of the trailer. With his palm flat on the siding, he pukes into the gravel on the other side.

"Ewwwwww!" Henry cries. "Clean yourself up before you come in, dude!"

 _Dude._ Carol chuckles. Henry's picked that up from Jerry.

Henry climbs up the stairs and into the trailer, a little unsteady on his feet, but not _too_ unsteady. Jake, laughing, crawls up the stairs on all fours behind him.

Well, Carol muses as she shuts her window for the night, at least she can pride herself on Henry's moderation. He's clearly the _least_ intoxicated of the three.


	37. Chapter 37

**_[Saturday, Sunrise]_**

Henry looks a little weary when he comes out of his trailer with his pack on. Carol, with one hand on her hip, awaits him at the bottom of his trailer stairs. "Where are the others?" she asks when he walks down.

"Uh…they decided not to come. I think maybe…uh…they caught a bug or something."

"Mhmhmm…." Then she shouts, "How's your head?"

Henry steps back and puts a hand to his head.

"You know the drinking age is sixteen, right?" Carol begins walking toward the gate. Henry falls in step beside her.

"It's not a _law_ ," Henry replies as they walk. "It's just a _guideline_. Like speed limits used to be in the old world."

"Speed limits were not _guidelines_."

"How mad are you, really?" Henry asks.

Carol sighs. "I understand it was a special occasion. I also appreciate you weren't so irresponsible you couldn't drag yourself out of bed this morning. But if it happens again - " Carol can't exactly _ground_ him. "I'm telling Ezekiel, and he'll put you on outhouse duty."

"The truth is, I could only drink so much," he admits. "That stuff's kind of nasty. And, also…I didn't want to be messed up this morning. Elizabeth agreed to come."

Carol smiles. "Did she now?"

" _Please_ don't make a big deal of it. And _please_ don't ride with us on the cart."

[*]

"Breakfast in bed?" Rosita asks as she sits up in her sleeping bag and Khalid hands her a cup of steaming liquid.

He sits down on the bottom edge of the bag. "Only the best for my lady."

Rosita lets the cup warm her hands. The late fall weather is cool. They both got back in their clothes after fooling around last night, but he's thrown on his jacket now, too. She ought to soon. She takes a small sip of the drink. "What is this? It tastes almost like coffee!" It's been at least eight months since she's tasted coffee.

"It _is_. Instant coffee anyway. It can last anywhere from two to twenty years. It's reserved for the scouts when they're on the road. Perk of the job." Khalid sips from his own cup. "So what's our plan for the day? Catch a movie? Make out in the back row?"

She smirks. "Something like that. I was thinking we should start by going back to that spot where we can see the grounds. Then come back to camp for a late lunch and watch the roof for a while. And then the bridge."

"It's a date."

 ** _[Saturday, Late Morning]_**

Daryl's on the platform of the fence when the groom's party arrives. Roland drives a two-horse cart laden with packs and several boxes of food to contribute to the wedding reception. A young redheaded knight, in his mid-twenties, rides on the two-person driver's seat beside him. On the tail of the cart, with their legs dangling off, sit Henry and Elizabeth, shoulder to shoulder, and next to them, Olivia. Judith will be thrilled to see her new best friend has come. Stephanie sandwiches her little girl safely between herself and Elizabeth. Next to Stephanie, and with his arm around her, sits a thirty-something knight whose name Daryl thinks might be Grayson. Or Graydon. Or Gordon. Olivia's father died in the War with the Whispers, but it looks like this G-man might soon be her stepfather.

Carol and Dianne ride side by side on two horses behind the cart, and behind them rides Jerry with Nabila between his legs. On another horse is a blond, curly haired twenty-something knight Daryl doesn't recognize. Liam, riding a sleek brown stallion, rounds out the wedding train. _Seven_ horses. The Kingdom has spared over half its stable for this journey. Ezekiel, however, is nowhere in the party, and Daryl feels a faint hint of relief to find the man has stayed behind to man his Kingdom.

He hastens down to throw open the gate, which Maggie is approaching on foot. After entering, Roland pulls the cart to a stop and climbs down from the driver's seat.

"Welcome to the Hilltop," Maggie tells him. "You can drop your things off in the foyer of the mansion, unless you've arranged to stay in someone's room."

Roland smiles lightly. "Who's room do you imagine I would have arranged to stay in?"

"By _you_ , I meant all y'all," Maggie replies. "And we'll get your horses stabled and watered."

Daryl helps Carol down from her horse. There's an awkward moment when he's not sure if he should kiss her in front of all these people, but he does, once, quickly, on the lips. "C'mon," he says, his hands still on her hips and a twinkle in his eye. "Gonna show ya yer digs for the next two nights."

[*]

Daryl throws back the flap of his tent and offers a hand to help Carol step up on the platform. He climbs up after her. "Ya can just drop yer pack anywhere."

Carol slides her pack off her shoulders and puts it on the other side of a stack of hardback books that seem to be serving as a nightstand. Quickly and curiously, she surveys the books. They're mostly hunting and firearms and tracking-related, though there's some textbook-like volumes on mechanics and household repairs as well. On the top rests a thin hardback volume – Sun Tzu's _Art of War_. "I thought you said you didn't read at night?"

"Meant story books."

The tent appears cleared out of belongings. "Where do you keep all your stuff?"

"Got storage bins under the platform."

Next to the book nightstand is a mattress Carol doesn't remember seeing the last time she came to trade at the Hilltop and glanced at his open tent in passing. The bed has been made up with two pillows in crisp burgundy pillow cases and a comforter that looks like it's been slept under only once.

The planks of the platform appear as they've been washed with only partial success. There are two camp chairs where there was only one before, and a TV-tray-stand rests between them. She creeps forward to investigate the stand. An unopened bottle of whiskey rests on it, along with two glasses, a jar of maraschino cherries (twenty months past its best-by date, but they _look_ fine), and a lemon likely plucked from one of the two dwarf lemon trees that grow in the foyer of the mansion. "What's all this?" she asks.

"Uh…I know ya don't like the whiskey plain, so thought I'd try to make ya an old fashioned later. Found Gregory's old cocktail book. Gonna replace the bitters with lemon. Muddle the cherries."

That sounds _awful_ , but it's also awfully sweet. Carol turns, flings her arms around his neck, and kisses him eagerly. He stumbles back in surprise at first, but then he wraps his arms around her, steps forward, and kisses back.

He draws away when Jerry, who is passing by, whistles because the front flaps of Daryl's tent are still open. Nabila shakes her head and rolls her eyes apologetically, but Jerry gives Daryl a thumbs up as they walk by. Carol hooks a finger through Daryl's belt loop and draws him close again. "You cleaned up your place for me."

He shrugs. "Little. Maybe."

She splays a hand across his chest. "And you're wearing the shirt."

He shrugs again. "Didn't have nothin' better for a weddin'."

The deep charcoal shirt hugs his broad shoulders, emphasizes his arms, and turns his eyes a smokier blue. "God, I want to have sex with you so badly right now," she admits.

Daryl lunges to the front edge of the platform and yanks down the canvass flaps.

When the last one billows closed, Carol smiles sympathetically. "Pookie, I said I _wanted_ to. I didn't say we were _going_ to. The wedding starts in an hour. And I promised Liam I would help set up their reception tent. But hold the thought." She steps forward and kisses his frowning lips. The kiss lingers, longer than she means it to, and she has to force herself to step back. "Would you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Encourage Henry to be serious about his math and science and liberal arts studies for the next nine months. He's completely slacked off. He thinks it's stupid that he doesn't start his primary and secondary apprenticeships full-time until next fall."

"Yeah, well, I think 's stupid, too."

"You do?" She steps back slightly.

"Yeah. Fourteen ain't a _baby_ in this world, Carol. Hell, I's on my own at seventeen. Boys should be apprenticed full-time at thirteen. Got all their basic book learnin' by then. Can learn whatever the hell else they need _on_ the job."

"Okay…then…" She shakes her head. "I just…never mind."

"Nah, don't never mind me. What?"

She swallows. "I guess I always wished I'd finished college, and I _hate_ seeing him take it for granted, what little time he has left in school. And I don't want our world to be _only_ about surviving anymore."

"It ain't," Daryl says softly. He sighs. "Look, if it's _important_ to ya…'M gonna do it, but…why _me_? Ya know I didn't finish high school, right?"

"Yes. But I think you could influence him positively. He looks up to you."

"He does?"

"Of course he does," Carol tells him. "You're a great warrior. A legend in the Alliance. And all he's ever wanted to be is a knight of the Kingdom. I just hoped maybe you could…" She shrugs. "Say something. In that…unique way of yours."

"A'ight." He puts a hand on her hip, kisses her forehead, and promises, "Take care of it."

[*]

Rosita and Khalid lie stomach down beneath a pine and continue to watch the Temple grounds through binoculars. They have to see their way through the bars of the fence and a few acres of bare branches, but with careful positioning, they can.

"This is boring," Rosita says. "All they're doing is gardening." Some are also gleaning the last of the fruit from a small orchard of ten fruit trees that lines a section of the pavement, and the young kids are playing under the supervision of three women.

"Love scene at nine o'clock," Khalid announces.

Rosita shifts her binoculars. The teenage boy who was fishing yesterday is sitting on a picnic bench and French kissing a teenage girl. "That makes eleven women I've seen since yesterday, if we're counting the teenagers as women."

"And forty men and teenage boys I've seen since Thursday," Khalid adds.

"If you're not double-counting anyone by mistake." There are also the fifteen children and babies they've now made out.

"He just copped a feel," Khalid says.

Rosita noticed that. She also noticed that the girl swatted his hand a way, and the boy took the rejection gracefully enough. She's glad to see that, because she was worried the women might be abused here, with the severe imbalance in the sexes and Khalid's suggestion that the men might be _sharing_ women. She still prefers to believe that woman they saw yesterday was just two-timing her man. The idea of brother-husbands creeps her out.

The teenage couple resumes French kissing, but then break apart suddenly and stand.

"Someone must have whistled them back to work," Khalid says. "Killjoys."

But the teenagers don't go back to work, and, in fact, everyone seems to be leaving the gardens and orchard and heading toward the fountain. Even the kids abandon their balls and bikes.

The pregnant woman they saw on the glass bridge yesterday has come to stand in front of the fountain, which has just turned on, though the garden sprinklers are off.

The community gathers to the left and right of the fountain, and three men break out of the crowd and kneel on one knee before the pregnant woman. Each extends their cupped hands outward toward her.

"What's in their hands?" Khalid asks.

"Fruit?" Rosita speculates as she zooms in. "Apples, maybe?"

The pregnant woman walks up and down the line of men and looks them over. She does this several times until, finally, she stops in front of the middle one, reaches out, plucks the apple from his hand, and takes a bite from it.

The community claps. The other two men whose apples were not selected stand and walk away. The man whose apple was chosen crawls forward on his knees and kisses the woman's pregnant stomach before rising to bite the apple she holds in her hand. The couple takes turns biting the apple until it's consumed to a mere core. The community disperses and returns to work and play.

"What. The. Fuck. Was. That?" Rosita asks.

"If I had to guess? I'd say she was choosing which one of those three husbands of hers is going to be designated the father of that baby in her womb, because it could potentially be any one of them. And for all their technology, they don't happen to have a DNA test in that Temple."

" _No_."

"There was a ritual somewhat like this among…I can't remember the tribal peoples, but they used a knife, not fruit."

"I thought you were a plumber in the old world."

" _And_ a poet," Khalid reminds her. "My father, however, was an anthropologist. He was always irritated I didn't go to college. Perhaps these people have evolved a new religion and culture in these end times. The _roots_ may be Mormon, but the branches are something altogether new."

"It's creepy and weird," she mutters.

"As an outsider looking in, you could say that of any religion."

"It doesn't wig you out?" she asks.

"Compared to what, exactly? Look at the world we live in. We've all created our own rules, our own communities, our own rituals. When I first stumbled on the Kingdom, with its king and its throne and its knights, it seemed weird to me, sure, but I was more than happy to play right along with it, to make myself _believe_ in it, if that meant leaving behind that shitstorm outside."

Rosita shakes her head slightly and goes back to surveying the Temple grounds.

[*]

Carol lays out the bagged granola treats she made for the reception on the snack table under the tent. There are a few circular card tables and chairs set up to provide rest for the weary, but it looks like people will mostly be standing. There's room for a dance floor, and Carol can't help but wonder what her dance with Daryl will be like.

Maggie is busy placing bottles on a rectangular table that will apparently serve as a bar. She's set out three bottles of whiskey and has now moved onto the wine. Carol walks over to assist her. There must be eighteen bottles of wine. "I knew about the distillery, but where'd you get all the wine?" she asks.

"Jesus and Daryl looted a few wineries in Leesburg just before the gas spoiled," Maggie answers. "The tasting rooms and winery buildings were all cleared out already, but the looters often didn't think to check the owner's houses."

"We still have quite a bit of wine ourselves," Carol says, "and mead, all from a monastery we found. Entire barrels of it. And we even have the monk who did the mead making. He tends beehives in the Kingdom now, and he still makes mead with the honey."

"Lucky you." The bottles now on the table, Maggie begins to set out glasses. "How are my chicks coming along?"

"They should hatch in the next two to three weeks," Carol tells her. "You should have your hen and her babies back for Christmas."

"I like the sound of that."

"Where's the little guy?"

"Glenn, Jr. is in the mansion with Judith and Gracie. Aaron's got his eye on them. We all call him Supernanny now."

Carol chuckles.

Maggie glances at her. "Hey, I'm really glad you're here for a couple days."

"Are you?"

Maggie freezes briefly in mid-motion and then sets the next glass down slowly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just…I think you might be glad I chose _not_ to settle at the Hilltop." Carol mentally kicks herself for saying it. The day of Enid's wedding is not the time to have this fight, but she can't stop the words that force themselves out of her.

Maggie puts two more glasses on the table. "Why would you say that?"

"We both know you supported Rick when he banished me from the prison."

"That was a long time ago, Carol. And _everyone_ supported his decision, except maybe Daryl. Rumor is he got really mad when he found out."

"Maybe," Carol concedes, "but it didn't hurt his relationship with Rick any."

"I think maybe you're right about that," Maggie says. "I thought maybe he'd harbored some resentment, but I was wrong. Daryl said something to me the other day, when I brought him some whiskey to say I was sorry for coming down on him so hard about the hunting. He said we've all forgiven each other _so much_ shit. And I realized…Daryl doesn't hold a grudge against _anyone_ for _anything_. Not anymore. And I don't want to either. Do you?"

Carol looks at the tale. A bit of sunlight glints off a glass.

"You played God, Carol. And it was terrifying to me back then, before I started playing God, too."

Carol looks up at her again.

"We've all done terrible things." Maggie shakes her head sadly. "We've all born our separate weights. But here we are….Still standing."

"There aren't many of us left from the pre-Alexandria days," Carol says. "You. Me. Daryl. Judith. Tara. Rosita." And only three left from the farm.

"No, there aren't. And we've got to stick together. Even if we're in different communities, we've got to stick together."

"You have no idea how _alone_ I felt out there," Carol confesses.

Maggie's hand slips from the glass she just set down. "I'm sorry, Carol. I'm _so_ sorry. I thought Rick was protecting the community."

Carol bites down on her bottom lip to keep the mixed emotions from spilling over.

"But when you found us in those woods…" Maggie lets out an unsteady breath. "I was so happy to see you. We all were."

"Of course you were." Carol's voice is slightly choked now. "Because I saved you from Terminus."

"You saved us from Terminus _even though_ we cast you out. It wasn't just about _saving us_. It was about _loving us_. And about us loving you back because you first loved us."

Carol sputters and swallows. She runs two fingers quickly from her eyes to the bridge of her nose to wipe away two stubborn tears that refuse to be held back.

Maggie takes in a breath and wipes a thumb under one of her eyes, too.

Carol slides another stray tear off her cheek.

"We're suppose to cry _at_ the wedding," Maggie says. "Not _before_ it."

Carol laughs, takes one last swipe at her eyes, and says, "Come on. Let's get this bar set up."


	38. Chapter 38

Daryl finds Henry leaned over the porch railing of the mansion, glowering. Daryl thuds back against the post a few feet from him. "Somethin' botherin' ya, kid?"

"Yeah!" Henry stands straight. "Elizabeth ran off to practice her flute with some Hilltop guy who's playing guitar at the reception. He looks about _seventeen_."

"Carter. Yeah. 'S only fifteen."

"I don't know now if Elizabeth came because _I_ asked her, or if it's because Liam asked her to play flute for his wedding march. And if she plays at the reception, too, with that _Carter_ guy - I'm not even going to be able to dance with her!"

"She probably ain't gonna play the whole damn time."

"Maybe," Henry says despondently.

"Listen, kid," Daryl says. "Carol wanted me to talk to ya."

Henry's eyes widen. He glances at the stairs as if judging his quickest path of escape.

"Nah. Ain't 'bout that," Daryl reassures him. "Carol says ya ain't been serious 'bout yer studies."

"I'm _completely_ serious about training to be a knight." Henry stands a little straighter. "And a hunter. I just don't see the point of all this other b.s." He steps forward and leans in conspiratorially. "You get me, right? Liberal arts? Algebra? Geometry? Physics? When am I ever going to need _that_ stuff?"

"A'ight, listen up. Gonna tell it to you like it is."

"Okay," Henry says a little nervously.

"Ain't gonna get no action without liberal arts."

Henry blushes, but he asks, "What do liberal arts have to do with getting action?"

"'Lizabeth plays the flute, yeah?"

Henry nods.

"So ya better study yer music."

"Well, I _did_ join the choir," Henry says, "because she's in it. And I can _kind of_ sing."

"There ya go. Literature's same thing. Girls like poems and shit. 'S the main reason Khalid keeps makin' it with Rosita."

Henry's flushing, but he's listening.

"Art…same thing. Rick got 'Chonne this dumbass metal sculpture once, looked like trash to me. But she went _crazy_ for it. Probably got him a _lot_ of action. See what I mean? Got to know yer basic liberal arts shit. 'N math 'n science, too."

The redness in Henry's freckled cheeks subsides somewhat as he allows his curiosity to get the better of his embarrassment. "How's math going to get me action?"

"Gonna get ya action 'cause 's gonna help ya hunt, 'n ya bring home meat, slap it on the table," Daryl smacks his hand down on the porch railing. "That gets their panties wet right then and there."

"How is math going to help me hunt?"

"Say ya got a target in yer sites. Say yer usin' a bow – "

"- I'm going to learn to hunt with a spear or a rifle."

"Fine, spear. As the target moves, got to calculate how much to raise the front of the arrow - _spear_ \- to compensate for its drop. Distance gives gravity more time to act."

"You do that? When you shoot an arrow? You sit there and you do math equations in your mind?"

"Not 'zactly," Daryl admits. "Don't _know_ I'm doin' it. But I couldn't do it if I couldn't do it."

Henry blinks. "Oh….kay."

"Huntin's all 'bout math and science."

"Well, I _know_ biology already."

"Ain't talking' biology. Talkin' physics. Takin' geometry n' algebra. Mass and aerodynamics. General flight of an arrow's a parabolic arc, right?"

"Uh…yeah, I guess."

"'That's geometry. 'N any parabolic arc can be expressed as a quadratic equation, yeah?"

"I…okay."

"That's algebra. With a spear, got to think 'bout transverse elastic vibrations. Gravitational pull." At this point, Daryl's just throwing out any science-sounding term he can think of. "Kinetic energy, potential energy. N that's physics. Now ya wanna talk rifle?"

Henry nods.

"A'ight, yer goal's to fire a round in a straight line from the barrel," he points to the tip of his finger, "to the center of yer target." He pokes Henry in the chest. "Little deviation at the barrel's gonna translate to a _big_ deviation 'tween the bullseye 'n the round placement." He shifts his finger a few inches over on Henry's chest and then pulls it away. "So say the barrel's canted 0.276 degrees 'n the end is .029 inches off. That deflection over 85 feet, separation of the shot placement from the bullseye's center's gonna be 'bout 6.9 inches off."

Henry's wide-eyed now. "I have no idea what you just said."

Neither does Daryl. The concept's accurate, but he was just making those numbers up. He's not sure they would actually add up if he really did the math. "'S why ya got study yer math, kid. Get what I'm sayin'?"

"But can I still become a good shot if I _can't_ calculate all that?" Henry asks with alarm.

"Yeah, practice'll make ya a good shot. But ya don't just want to be _good_ , right? Wanna be the best badass shot ya can be."

Henry nods. "Yeah."

"So study yer math 'n science. The rest'll come natural."

"I never realized how much math was in hunting. Maybe I _should_ be a cook instead."

"Aw hell, even more math in cookin'. Fractions 'n shit. Stick with the huntin'."

Henry lets out a puff of air and shakes his head. "Wow. You must have done _really_ well in algebra and geometry in high school. Did you get like an A+?"

This is probably not the time to tell Henry he failed algebra in 9th grade, or that he squeaked by with a C- when he re-took it in 10th grade, or that he dropped out of high school three weeks into 11th grade. "Ya ought to go help Carol set up the reception."

[*]

Roland strolls in under the tent as Carol and Maggie are neatly arranging the glasses. "You've done a nice job here," he tells them. "Thank you for doing all this for my son."

"Well, _I'm_ doing it for Enid," Maggie insists.

"Thank you nonetheless." Roland rests his fingertips on the bar. "You saw that stallion Liam was riding?"

"Yes," Maggie replies, "beautiful horse."

"Well, he's the Hilltop's now. It's Ezekiel's wedding gift to Liam. Even better than a rooster." He smiles at her.

"Did _you_ talk him into that?"

"I wish I could say I did. But Liam helped capture and break that horse. And it's still a little skiddish with anyone but him. You can get it to plow though."

"Good. We could use another horse." Maggie takes a box of food off a cart, sets it on a snack table, and begins unloading it.

Carol wonders how Maggie would react if she found out Roland didn't want to tell her about the Temple.

"Are you here to help?" Maggie asks him.

"I'm here to drag you to the mansion. We need to get dressed, you and I. For the wedding. I've been told you're Enid's maid of honor?"

"Yes," Maggie replies. "I was honored she asked. I guess she sees me as a big sister."

"Well, we should go get outfitted."

Maggie looks at Carol, but before she can ask, Carol says, "I'll finish all this up. You go on."

As they leave, Henry enters the tent and asks if there's anything he can do help, and Carol puts him to work.

[*]

Everyone has gone inside the Temple. "Do you think we should head back to camp now?" Khalid asks. "Watch the roof?"

"Eleven o'clock!" Rosita cries anxiously, raising her voice more than she means to.

"What? Where? I don't see."

"Armed men. Spilling out from under that awning in front of the Temple."

Khalid focuses his binoculars.

Twelve men march forward clutching compound bows and wearing quivers. A thirteenth man has some strange, black, box-like object in his hands. All of the men stop suddenly halfway down the pavement and spread out into a straight line. The twelve archers load and ready their bows.

"Shit!" mutters Rosita. "Do you think we've been spotted?"

But the archers angle their bows and arrows upward toward the sky, not toward them. The man with the box slams his hand down on it. A deafening, horn-like sound blares out across the grounds and through the woods.

Rosita leaps in her skin. The evergreen tree rustles wildly above them. Birds scatter from the woods in confused flight across the Temple grounds. A dozen arrows soar, and then the line swivels a hundred and eighty degrees all at once while the men draw from their quivers and reload. A dozen more arrows fly into the air. Quail and crow fall to the Temple grounds like rain. The horn blares again. As the birds continue to flock frantically from the forest, the men swivel, shoot, swivel, shoot, swivel, shoot until all their arrows are spent and the last of the fleeing birds have vanished into the far distance over the Temple roof.

"Well all righty then," Khalid says. "I guess they _aren't_ eating people for meat."

Now the trees _behind_ them rustle. "Shit." Rosita rolls over onto her back while unsheathing her knife. "Walkers!"

[*]

The pews are packed, and people – including Carol and Daryl - line the back of the chapel where there are no pews. Kids sit on shoulders – Gracie on Aaron's, Glenn, Jr. on Tara's, Judith on Daryl's. But Carol doesn't see Rosita anywhere. She leans over and asks in a whisper, "Where's Rosita?" as Liam takes his place at the altar with Roland and his two other groomsmen.

"Scoutin' that Temple," Daryl whispers back. "Thought she was comin' back for the weddin' though."

"She probably ran into Khalid. Ezekiel sent him to scout until Sunday afternoon."

Daryl looks relieved by this news. "I'll worry if she ain't back by Monday."

The congregation falls silent as Elizabeth begins playing the wedding march on the flute. Maggie walks down the aisle as Enid's maid of honor, trailed by the Howell twin girls. The women all carry plastic flower arrangements assembled from old decorations in the historical mansion. They take their place near the altar across from the groomsmen. Liam shifts on his heels and smiles nervously as Enid begins to walk herself down the aisle.

Enid wears a white, ankle-length dress. Maggie and the Howell twins have on silky, royal blue dresses that are split at the leg, and Maggie looks almost like a model. Carol's not surprised Roland keeps smiling dopishly at her. Liam and all of his groomsmen are wearing matching suits – black with white button-down-shirts and silver-gray ties. Now Roland _really_ looks like Cary Grant. "They're all so _good-looking_ ," Carol whispers to Daryl. "I feel under-dressed." She's wearing clean, dark jeans and a long-sleeve, pale peach blouse. She chose a button-down one, because she suspects Daryl likes undoing buttons.

"Ya look great," he whispers back.

Judith shifts on Daryl's shoulders and accidentally kicks him the chin. He grabs her legs and steadies her.

"Dearly beloved," Father Gabriel intones, looking out at the congregation and seeing, Carol imagines, only flashes of light. "We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The bond and…"

Carol tries to pay attention to the wedding, but she can feel Daryl's eyes on her. They linger on her cleavage, rise to her lips, and then meet her eyes. She smiles at him. His lips twitch, and he turns his attention back to the couple and priest.

"….for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity…."

Carol steps closer to Daryl and slides an arm around his waist. Judith, from her perch atop his shoulders, reaches over and pats the top of Carol's head, saying, "Carol, Carol, my Daryl's Carol." Carol smiles and raises a finger to her lips to shush the little girl.

"…into this holy union Enid Hamilton and Liam Norton now come to be joined. Enid, will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?"

"I will," Enid answers.

Liam rocks on his heels.

 _"_ Liam, will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?

Liam smiles and nods eagerly.

Father Gabriel leans forward slightly as if trying to hear. "Will you?"

"Yes," Liam hastens. "I do. I will."

"Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?"

"We will," the congregation – or most of it – answers.

"Didn't realize I had a line," Daryl whispers to her, and Carol covers her mouth so she won't laugh.

Father Gabriel launches into a prayer and then starts reciting a scripture about love being patient and kind. "…Love is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."

That last bit of the line strikes Carol like a slap across the face. _Love keeps no record of wrongs._ She looks at Maggie clutching her plastic bouquet of flowers and smiling at Enid. It's such a hard thing, she thinks, to keep no record of wrongs.

"Love does not delight in evil," Father Gabriel recites, "but rejoices in the truth. Love always protects." Daryl puts a hand on Carol's shoulder. "Love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

A homily follows the scripture reading, and Daryl has to take his hand off Carol to steady Judith on his shoulders because she's becoming restless. The little girl starts to drum on his head. At the front of the church, the groomsmen and bridesmaids are shifting from foot to foot. Roland raises an eyebrow across the way to Maggie, who is clearly trying not laugh.

Finally, Father Gabriel wraps it up and moves onto the vows. Liam takes Enid's right hand in his. "In the name of God," he repeats after Father Gabriel's whispered words, "I, Liam Norton, take you, Enid Hamilton, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow."

Enid vows in the same fashion. Father Gabriel hands his Bible to Maggie, who tucks it under her plastic flowers, and then turns toward Roland, who takes the priest's hand and presses the rings into his palm.

"Bless, O Lord, these rings _,"_ Father Gabriel prays _, "_ to be a sign of the vows by which this man and this woman have bound themselves to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord. _Amen."_

Father Gabriel opens his palm, and Liam removes one of the gold bands and slides it onto Enid's finger, saying, "I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you."

Enid does the same.

Father Gabriel gropes blindly for their newly ringed hands and joins them together. "Now that Enid and Liam have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, with the joining of hands and the giving and receiving of rings, I pronounce that they are husband and wife, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder."

"Amen!" the congregation shouts, and Daryl opens his mouth a beat too late.

 **[*]**

Cold water splashes up as Rosita's boots hit the creek bed. Her rifle swings from her shoulder while she clutches her bloodied, gut-covered knife. She hasn't fired her gun for fear of drawing the attention of the Temple hunters, who were quietly collecting their birds when she and Khalid began to flee. They couldn't run _toward_ the fence line without possibly being seen, so they had to run _into_ the woods, weaving and stabbing their way through the walkers drawn by the horn. Now there's a herd of about thirty walkers after them.

Khalid's footsteps pound behind her. Her heart races and she pants for breath as she scurries up the embankment on the other side, using roots and forcing footholds into the earth to drag herself to the top.

The herd of walkers, lurching and growling, wades through the creek bed after Khalid. He turns, stabs the closet one in the forehead with his rapier, and tries to yank it back out. It sticks. The point must be lodged in bone. He lets go, kicks back the next walker, and turns and runs, throwing himself in a running leap against the embankment.

Rosita scrambles to her feet on the overlook above, looks down, and watches in horror as a root snaps off in Khalid's hand and he tumbles down the embankment. He lands hard on his back on the shore of the creek as the herd lurches closer.


	39. Chapter 39

A variety of snacks line the card tables beneath the reception tent. It's the bar Daryl notices first, however. Maggie's put a sign up on the table – _Two drinks per person_ – _ages 17 and up only_ \- and she has Eugene monitoring the table and pouring the drinks. Always careful of the bottom line, Daryl thinks.

The musicians begin playing, with one of the groomsmen on fiddle, Carter from the Hilltop on guitar, and Henry's crush on flute. The bride and groom dance first, and then Roland dances with his new daughter-in-law. After that, the floor is pretty much opened up.

"So…." Carol says, smiling and raising an eyebrow at him. "Are we going to – "

"My Daryl!" Judith cries as she jogs over to him and seizes him by his hand. Daryl looks back at Carol apologetically as the little girl drags him out to the dance floor.

Judith demands he "swing, swing, swing" her, and Daryl does, until her feet come off the floor and her legs almost smack Jerry and Nabila who are dancing together. Carol watches and laughs, but is soon swept up for a dance by Aaron and then for a second dance by Jerry when Nabila leaves the floor.

After two songs, Daryl's made Judith suitably dizzy, and she runs off careening toward her friend Olivia. Judith plows into the other girl, and they both fall down giggling. Dianne helps them up, and then the two girls run together to the dance floor, where they jump and giggle and shimmy and shake and do everything except keep time to the music.

Carol's busy talking with Enid, so Daryl gets himself a glass of whiskey at the bar from Eugene, who measures the pour precisely with his fingers. "I've been contemplating your dilemma concerning the swine byproduct," Eugene tells him as he hands the glass over. "Given the suboptimal statistical probability of successfully operating an engine on such an unpredictable biofuel without undesirable incidence and possible flammatory results, I believe a careful refining process is indispensable. And I may have developed some insights into the aforementioned process."

"Mhmhm. Good. Talk 'bout it when I get that bike built." Daryl looks over at Sharon, who is currently without a dance partner. "Ya oughtta ask Sharon to dance."

"I cannot forsake my post as a valued dispenser of liquid refreshments, but I will take your recommendation under advisement when I am relieved by my replacement in approximately one hour."

"One _hour_? How long's this damn reception gonna last?"

"In my admittedly limited experience, these sorts of festive occasions typically expand to consume the better part of the afternoon."

"Fuck," Daryl mutters. He takes a big sip of whiskey. Bigger than he meant to. He prowls to a remote corner of the tent from which he can watch people.

Carol has moved on from Enid and is now talking with Bertie. Judith and Olivia run for the lemonade bowl, and Stephanie seizes the ladle from her daughter and pours the drinks for her and Judith. Roland guides Maggie out onto the dance floor with a hand on the small of her back, and when they assume position, Maggie adjusts Roland's tie. Sharon's had some luck – she's leading a blind Father Gabriel to the dance floor. Tara drags a clearly reluctant Dianne to join the other couples.

After the music starts, Henry steals moonstruck glances at Elizabeth as the girl plays her flute, so Daryl makes his way over to where his former hunting apprentices are standing and sipping wine. "Hey, Andy, didn't ya say ya played the flute in yer high school orchestra?"

"Clarinet."

"Got one?"

"A clarinet?" Andy asks. "I've got that one we found in the mansion. Why?"

"Why don't ya join the band? Give that flute girl a rest?"

Andy and Lisa exchange looks. "Could be fun," Lisa tells her husband, "to have an audience of more than just _me_ for a change."

Andy laughs. "Yeah, maybe I'll go grab it in a bit."

[*]

Rosita flicks off her rifle's safety and shoots a walker that's just about to sink its teeth into Khalid's ankle. The spent, hot brass shell casing flies back, smacks her neck, and slides down into her undershirt, settling between her cleavage and singing the skin.

Khalid scurries to a standing position and draws his long sword from the sheath on his back. With a two-handed grip, he swings the heavy sword and slashes the blade through the nearest creature's neck. The walker's head goes flying, lands with a plop in the water, and keeps gnashing.

The herd presses in. As Khalid decapitates another, Rosita shouts, "Hey! Fresh meat! Over here!" She runs along the top of the embankment, drawing most of the herd off of Khalid, who stabs and slashes three more before sheathing his long sword. He splashes into the creek again and attempts to reclaim his rapier from the fallen walker.

"Just fucking leave it!" Rosita shouts as part of the herd she's lured away begins to break off in his direction again.

Khalid abandons his rapier, turns, and runs. This time, the roots he grabs hold, and he makes it to the top, where he crawls away from the ledge and rolls, panting, onto his back as the walkers gather below and grasp for him.

Rosita helps him up. They look down at the walkers, which stretch their decaying arms up the embankment and claw desperately at the dirt with rotting fingers. The creatures can't climb.

"Come on." Rosita turns and jogs away. Khalid follows.

[*]

It's a long time before Carol gets her dance with Daryl, because she keeps getting distracted. She eats, drinks, and catches up with all the Hilltop women she hasn't seen in a month. The Hilltop men sweep her up for dances.

As Siddiq turns her around the floor, he chatters on about Beatrice. Apparently they're getting married in the spring at Oceanside.

"What's Maggie think of that?" Carol asks.

"Oh, I'm not leaving. Oceanside already has a former EMT and a former paramedic, but the Hilltop can't afford to lose me. Beatrice is moving here after the wedding. And she can fish, so Maggie's happy about that. We don't have many good fishermen."

Father Gabriel dances with Carol next and asks her, "What does Sharon look like?"

"Does it matter?" Carol asks.

"I'm just curious."

"She has dirty blonde hair," Carol tells him, "brown eyes, and a nice smile." And at the moment, Sharon's asking Roland to dance, but Carol doesn't tell him that.

Jesus claims her next. He tells her, "I can't get Aaron to dance with me in public, but even if I could...the women won't leave him alone. He's too nice to them. And it doesn't help that he looks like an L.L. Bean catalogue model."

Carol chuckles.

When the music stops temporarily, and some man with a clarinet takes Elizabeth's place with the band, Carol looks around for Daryl. She finds he's retreated to a distant corner by himself, where he's nursing the last drop of his second allotted whiskey. She walks over to him, hooks her finger into the pocket of his dark Wranglers, and asks, "You ready to dance, Pookie?"

"Kinda hoped you'd be danced out by now."

"Oh no. I'm just warming up," she assures him.

"Well don't 'spect much."

"I'm not."

He leaves his empty glass on a table before he follows her out to the floor. They stop somewhere near the far right edge of the dirt dance floor, between Liam, who is dancing with one of the Hilltop bridesmaids, and Enid, who is dancing with one of the Kingdom groomsmen. Carol makes sure to put plenty of couples between themselves and Henry, who is standing nervously with Elizabeth on the far left of the dance floor. The boy's right hand is on her hip, and the fingers of his left hand are laced through hers and holding her hand outward as though he thinks they're about to ballroom dance. Henry stands stiffly and waits for the music to start.

As the music starts, Daryl puts both hands on Carol's hips. She wraps her arms around his neck, and he begins to sway with her.

"Well, don't leave _too much_ room for the Holy Spirit," she teases.

Daryl moves a hand from her hip to the small of her back and pushes her abruptly against him. His crotch slams against her abdomen. "Sorry," he mutters, and eases back a little.

Once he achieves a comfortable position, though, Daryl's a better slow dancer than she expects. He doesn't step on her feet once. His eyes are deliciously smoky in contrast to his shirt, which smells faintly of soap, as if he just had it washed last night.

"Where'd you learn to dance?" she asks as they sway.

"M' high school girl taught me."

"I can't picture you at a high school dance."

"'Cause I ain't never been to one. But we'd dance sometimes, outside her car, to music on the stereo. Usually got me laid."

"Ah…" She smiles. "Is _that_ why you've agreed to dance with me?"

"Nah. Figured I'm gettin' laid sometime this weekend anyhow." He slides an arm across her waist and pulls her just a little closer. "Just know ya wanted me to. 'N I like makin' ya happy."

Carol's bottom lip quavers slightly. "Thank you," she whispers.

Daryl presses his forehead to hers. "Beautiful," he mutters as he sways with her. "You. Ya know."

Carol closes her eyes and lets him lead as music and laughter fill the tent.

[*]

When the gnashing of the herd grows faint, Rosita's jog slows to a fast walk, then a stroll, and finally she and Khalid plop down on the forest ground and lean back to rest against the thick trunk of a tree.

"Thank you," Khalid says between breaths. "That was a getting a bit tight."

"Sorry about the gunshot, but that thing was _way_ too close to you."

"The Temple's far enough away now that they probably won't worry a single shot is of any concern to _them_. They must hear distant gunshots from time to time. Lone survivors."

"And it certainly doesn't look like they leave home to go investigating." Rosita slips her hand down into her cleavage.

Khalid watches her with a smile. "This is no time for self-pleasuring."

She rolls her eyes. "I got a shell casing stuck down there."

"Want me to forage for it?"

She pulls it out between two fingers and flings it at him. It bounces off his shoulder and lands on the forest floor. Over her undershirt, she rubs the spot between her breasts. "I got burned."

"I've got some burn cream back at the camp. I'll slowly rub it in for you later tonight."

"You don't quit, do you?"

"You know..." Khalid's eyes fall to her cleavage. "You probably shouldn't leave the top three buttons of your overshirt undone and wear such low-cut undershirts. I mean…it _looks_ good, but how often do you get spent brass between those enticing mountains of tender beauty?"

"Not that often," she insists, "and that line sucks, by the way. Your poetry in _Songs of the Soul_ is much better."

"You read my book?" Khalid asks.

"I told you I found it." She read it twice, but she doesn't tell him that. Rosita unclips her canteen from her belt, sips from it, and hands it over to him.

He takes a swig before handing it back. "I need to go back and get my rapier."

"No."

"It's my _best_ weapon."

"You've got your long sword."

"It isn't special," he complains.

"You want to get us _killed_?"

"Tomorrow, I mean. When they've given up trying to climb that embankment and wandered off."

"That horn must draw walkers _every_ time," Rosita says.

"I don't know how often they use it. This is the first I've heard it, and the other scout didn't mention it. But you're right. The walkers must pile up on that fence afterward."

"Maybe they have cleaners that stab the walker through the bars. Maybe they're cleaning the fence right now and wondering why they have so many fewer walkers than usual."

"I don't think they clean it," Khalid replies. "We haven't seen any walker bodies outside the fence."

"Then what do they do? Just go inside the Temple and wait for the walkers to wander away?"

"Most likely. That fence is iron. It probably holds. And there's plenty of animals in these woods to distract the walkers away eventually."

Rosita stands and clips her canteen on her belt. "Well, we obviously can't go back to that spot where we can see the grounds. Let's go back to camp, get some lunch, and watch the roof." She reaches out her hand to him and pulls him up.

[*]

Sunlight filters through the canvas of Daryl's tent. Voices, laughter, and music drift from the reception across the Hilltop. Carol is beautifully, gloriously naked atop him.

Daryl should dance with her more often, because after their second dance, she wanted to sneak away. He got to strip her down slowly, unbuttoning each and every one of those buttons of her blouse one by one by one…then slowly sliding the bra straps off her shoulder….popping the clasp open, and toying leisurely with her.

But things picked up from there.

"Oh God, Daryl!" Carol cries as she rides him now, her knees down on the mattress as he holds her steady by the hips, her pert tits bouncing with each desperate jerk of her hips. Licking his lips, he watches them move, watches her take her pleasure from him.

"Oh, God!" She jerks faster. "Oh… my….please….please…please….PLEASE!" Carol lets out a strangled cry, shudders like a storm front's just swept through, and collapses whimpering against him.

Daryl's been holding back, so when it's clear she's finished, he rolls her onto her back and, palms down on the mattress, continues to rock inside her, watching her breasts giggle with each thrust. It drives him wild, watching them move like that. His thrusts grow faster and harder and his breath grows raspier until he grunts out, "really….really…really…nice…..tiiiiits." The last word is a long, low groan, and then he crumples to the mattress, half on her, half off.

She giggles.

"'S so funny?" he mutters against her shoulder.

"Nothing. Just….it was an interesting exclamation at the end there."

He slides the rest of the way off her and lies sideways with an arm draped across her stomach. "Well…ya do. Have 'em."

She rolls until she's facing him, and he eyes are twinkling. "Daryl, that felt SO good."

"Don't it usually?"

"Yes. But that felt even…I don't know. I've never done it that way before. In that position."

"On top, ya mean?" he asks skeptically.

"I haven't. Plain vanilla, remember?"

Daryl tries not to show his surprise.

"I think maybe you hit the spot," she says. "There's a spot, right?"

"Thought I'd hit it before."

"Is there a spot beyond the spot then?" she asks.

He snorts. "Dunno 'bout that. But 'm glad it felt extra good." He kisses her, and they press their foreheads together.

After a few minutes like that, breathing slowly in and out, he rolls to his back and she settles her head on his chest. The distant fiddle music has picked up speed. "When's your rematch with Dianne?"

"Right after the reception I reckon. 'Fore sunset. 'Cause in the mornin', yer people leave. 'Cept you." He grins and hugs her. "Yer stayin' till Monday."

"Yep." She lifts her head to kiss his nose. "And we're hunting Sunday?"

He nods.

She settles her head on his shoulder now. "Did you see that Maggie danced with Roland?"

"Hell, he danced with everyone." The man never stopped getting requests from the Hilltop ladies, both single and married. They piled up on him like hungry mice on a piece of cheese. Even Sharon got her turn. Though Maggie was the only one _he_ had to ask.

Daryl runs a fingertip down Carol's spine and then back up. "Henry got his dance with 'Lizabeth."

"He did."

"'Cause I got Andy to play the flute."

She smiles. "That was a Clarinet. But that was nice of you, to help Henry out. And while we were setting up he told me he's going to get more serious about his studies. What did you say to him?"

"Ya don't wanna know."

She kisses his bare shoulder, and says, "Thank you."

Outside the tent, there's a flourish of noise. The music is moving away from the reception tent and toward the gate. "I think it's the send-off!" Carol cries.

"Send-off? Hell's a send-off?"

Carol doesn't answer. She's too busy scrambling for her clothes.


	40. Chapter 40

Daryl dresses hastily and pulls his boots on without any socks. He follows Carol to the gate of the Hilltop, where a crowd has already gathered, and they find a free space beside Roland and Maggie.

Liam and Enid sit astride the brown stallion Liam rode to the Hilltop. A large pack hugs Liam's back, and the horse is laden with camping gear.

"Hell they goin'?" Daryl asks.

"Their honeymoon," Maggie replies. Glenn, Jr. leans against her legs, holding a bubble wand. Judith and Olivia and the other kids all have bubble wands, and there's a bucket of soapy suds sitting on the ground. "They'll be back Tuesday and you can put Liam to work hunting."

"Honeymoon?" Daryl asks. " _Where_?"

"They're going to Oceanisde to pitch a tent on a semi-private spot on the beach for a couple of days," Roland explains.

"Romantic, huh?" Carol asks Daryl.

"They'll still have the benefit of the Oceanside guards," Roland says, "but they'll have a little more honeymoon space than at the Hilltop."

The riflemen on the watch platform clear the walkers from the fence line. A few have been drawn and gathered in response to the festive noise inside the Hilltop. When the riflemen are done, Maggie unlatches the gate.

The crowd gives up a cheer and children blow bubbles in happy streams as Liam and Enid thunder through the open gate.

[*]

Rosita crunches the pork rind Khalid has just handed her. They sit on a blanket just inside the trees at the plateau overlooking the Temple roof. She licks her fingers clean of the salty after taste. "Are you going to have enough food to last you if you keep sharing with me?" She only packed enough for two nights.

"I'll manage," Khalid insists. "We'll try to catch something for dinner tonight, so we're not hitting my stash." He pops a pork rind into his mouth.

"I thought Muslims didn't eat pork," she says as she resumes watching the rooftop through her binoculars. There's only men up there again.

"Why do you assume I'm Muslim? Maybe I'm Jewish."

Rosita lowers her binoculars and turns her eyes on him languidly. "Sure. Jewish people always name their sons Mohammed."

"Let's just say that I'm about as Muslim as you are Catholic."

"I'm _very_ Catholic."

"Especially when you're screaming to Jesus while I'm ramming you, yes?"

"Screw you."

"Please _do_. But later tonight." He raises his binoculars again.

[*]

Jerry counts his footsteps from the starting line to mark off the distance. He stops and Henry and Elizabeth set up the archery targets on either side of him.

Carol kisses Daryl on the cheek. "Good luck. Think of your prize."

"Hell no," he says. "If'n I think 'bout that, ain't gonna be able to concentrate at all."

"Sorry. Should I not have offered? Am I'm going to make it harder for you now?"

"Oh, yer gonna make it harder all right."

Carol groans and rolls her eyes. Daryl chuckles at his own sophomoric joke. "Gave me motivation to practice," he confesses. "Just cain't think 'bout it 'tween now and the end of the match."

"Okay." She lets her fingertips slip from his shoulder and walks back to the sidelines to join the audience.

Judith reaches her arms up to her, and Carol puts the girl on her shoulders for a better view. Judith is now beside Olivia, who is on her mother's boyfriend's shoulders. Glenn, Jr. rides Maggie's shoulders, and Gracie sits perched on Jesus's. Other kids sit cross-legged in the dirt in front of the taller adults. Meanwhile, still other people line the watch platform of the fence to spectate while Aaron and Tara stand armed on each end, ready to shoot any walkers that stumble out of the woods and lurch close enough to interfere with the competition.

"Let's keep the cheering to a minimum," Elizabeth says from the center of the field, projecting her voice. Daryl and Dianne both agreed the teenage girl could be referee since she competed in the Kingdom's archery tournament and – given her young age – held her own. They trust her to score correctly. "We don't want to draw too many walkers. The first round is compound bow, then crossbow, then longbow. The compound and crossbow rounds will be at thirty and sixty yards. The longbow rounds will be at a hundred and two hundred."

"We did 80 and 120 at the tournament," Daryl mutters.

"Because of the restrictions of the football field," Dianne tells him. "We have all the space in the world here. Why? Concerned you can't make the distance accurately?"

"Nah." He _is_ concerned. A little. Not about the 100 yards, but the farthest out he practiced was 150 yards. He figured If he could do well at 150, he could do well at 120.

"Two rounds for each bow," Elizabeth continues. "You will have six arrows per round. The yellow bullseye is a ten. The red ring is an eight, the blue is a six, the black is a four, and the last, outer white ring is a two. Best of luck to our archers. You may begin when I blow the whistle."

Dianne stretches her neck while Daryl adjusts his archery glove. Their quivers stand upright on the ground before them, ready for drawing. "Good luck," Dianne tells him. "You're going to need it."

"You, too. Yer gonna need it more."

She smiles. The whistle sounds. Arrows rasp and whoosh and thud, rasp and whoosh and thud. Daryl holds his last arrow a little longer than Diane, and there's silence for a moment, and then a lone woosh and a final thud. Elizabeth scores the shots and reclaims and returns the archers' arrows. The targets are moved back to sixty yards, as measured by Jerry's footsteps, and the whistle is blown again.

 _Rasp, woosh, rasp, thud, woosh, thud rasp…_

Just as both archers are about to let go of their last arrows, there's a pop, pop from the platform as Aaron and Tara take down two walkers emerging from the edge of the distant woods. Dianne flinches at the sound, but Daryl, used to hearing it from his night practice outside the fence, does not. Her arrow goes in the white, and his in the yellow. After the second compound bow round is scored, Daryl has 118 to Dianne's 112.

"Try cleaning the walkers _between_ rounds," Dianne shouts up to the shooters. "They weren't even close."

Aaron waves apologetically from the fence.

Daryl fully expects to pull further ahead in the crossbow round, but Dianne's clearly been practicing, and he's been so worried about the longbow, that he hasn't dusted his crossbow off in days. To his dismay, he doesn't get a perfect sixty in the second round. One falls in the red and another in the blue, leaving him with a total of only 114 for crossbow. Dianne, on the other hand, gets 116.

There's a shocked "whoaaa" from the crowd when the scores are announced. Daryl glances at Carol and sees she's covered her mouth with her hand in surprise.

"Well, well, well," Dianne says. "How _unexpected_."

"Still four points ahead of ya," he mutters.

"You're going to need it going into the longbow round," she insists.

[*]

"Do you think they're willing, these women?" Rosita asks. "That they're okay with the polywhatever?"

"Have any of them _looked_ unwilling to you?"

"No," she concedes. "But like you said…when the alternative is the shitstorm outside, maybe you just go along with it."

"It seems like the women are in control to me."

Rosita makes a _pfffffft_ sound. "Oh _really_? Then why are they always popping out babies?"

"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

"What a load of bullshit. If they have so much power, why are they always the ones watching the kids? Why do they never get to hunt birds or go on the rooftop?"

" _Get_ to hunt and go on the rooftop?" he asks. "As if it's some kind of privilege to have to hunt to feed the entire community or to do extra labor in the rooftop gardens? The women clearly don't work as hard as the men."

"That's sexist. Raising kids is a shit ton of work. My mother raised four by herself."

"And I raised three," he reminds her. "By myself. At least for the last four years of their lives."

"Oh. Yeah," she says quietly and guiltily. "Sorry." She lowers her binoculars to see if he seems upset, but he's smirking.

"Although," he says, "I _did_ employ a hot young Swedish nanny to assist me."

Rosita shakes her head and raises her binoculars again. "Did you fuck her?"

He chuckles. "No. I didn't really have a Swedish nanny. The retired, sixty-year-old school teacher who lived next door watched them while I was at work. And as much as she _attempted_ to fuck me, I did not allow her."

Rosita smirks. "How hard could she have tried?"

"Clearly not hard enough."

They watch silently for a while, but Rosita's mind keeps turning to the women who are not on the roof. "What if these women are forced into this situation? Shared between men like some kind of sex slaves?"

"They seem happy. They're always talking and smiling and laughing. The women initiated most of the physical contact we've seen. If I'm right about the apple ceremony, that one woman got to select the father of her child. What makes you think she didn't also get to select her husbands?"

"Here's the part I _really_ don't get," Rosita says. "What kind of man is perfectly okay with his wife screwing two other men?"

"I never suspected you had such a passionate monogamous streak." Khalid lowers his binoculars and hands her his open bag of pork rinds.

Rosita puts down her binoculars and takes another. "Well, at least these Temple men can't be much of a threat. They must be terrible fighters. They have no testosterone." She pops the pork rind in her mouth.

"I wouldn't assume they're weak. It must take quite a bit of self-discipline to suppress your natural jealousies for the sake of the group. But with this arrangement in which nearly every man has a sexual outlet, there's no need to war with one another or wander in search of women. They maintain a more peaceful, permanent, and stable society. Consider the Saviors. One man rose to power, and he took most of the wives for himself. That was unsustainable."

"Because _we_ un-sustained it," Rosita insists.

"And Dwight helped you to, because he was angry Negan took his wife. _Natural jealousy_ toppled the Saviors." Khalid bends his head to catch her eyes. "Are you all right? Did I say something wrong?"

Rosita picks up her binoculars and studies the roof. "No. I just miss Dwight." Rosita and Dwight became friends when they both settled at the Sanctuary, before it was destroyed. They were brothers in arms in the War with the Whispers. Dwight died in that war. Most of the former Saviors did. Dwight found his Sherry before that, though. The couple had a few happy months together. After Dwight died and the Sanctuary was destroyed, Sherry went to live at Oceanside with the other perpetual widows.

" _Three_ husbands," Rosita mutters. "How much sex must the poor woman be expected to have? Men are complete horndogs. Even if you have just one man, he's already pestering you for sex every night."

"They probably have a schedule. Two nights a week per husband. One day off."

Rosita lowers her binoculars. "And a week off when she's on the rag? You think a guy's going to settle for six times a month?"

Khalid continues to watch the roof. "Well, _I've_ only had sex six times this _year_."

"Because you haven't had access to a girlfriend before now. But now that you do, you're expecting it every night that you're with me."

"So have we upgraded our relationship status?" he asks. "Are you my girlfriend now?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"No?" he asks. "How _did_ you mean it?"

"I'm just saying it's generally easier for women to go without sex."

Khalid smirks. " _You_ could have fooled me."

"Most of those women at Oceanside don't have boyfriends," she argues.

"Who says they're going without sex, though?" He lowers his binoculars and wiggles his eyebrow.

"Oceanside is just one big lesbian orgy in your fantasies, isn't it?"

"Bisexual orgy," he clarifies. "Because of course they sometimes invite me to join in."

Rosita flicks him off and looks through her binoculars again, since he's put his down.

"They aren't _all_ determined to be widows for life," Khalid says. "Tyra's marrying Ezekiel next month. Beatrice is marrying Siddiq in March. Rumor is Kathy's involved with that new man they took in, now that he's done with Jesus. That pony express woman, Ellen? She has a knight she sees whenever she stays in the Kingdom. Most of them are very open to the idea of relationships with men again. You shouldn't play too hard to get, Rosita," he warns her. "I might stalk weaker prey."

"I doubt that. You like the chase too much."

"Touché."

There's something happening on the roof now. People are spilling out of the rooftop doors and filing along the path between gardens toward the tower that sports the golden pike with the angel Moroni.

[*]

Dianne, not unsurprisingly, scores a perfect sixty in the long-bow round at one hundred yards. What is surprising for much of the audience is that Daryl comes nearly as close, with a 58. He is now still ahead of his competition, though his lead has dropped to two points.

He glances at the sidelines, where Judith sits on Carol's shoulders. The little girl claps while Carol lets go of one of her legs to give him a thumbs up.

Another lone walker is cleared by a shot from Aaron's rifle as Jerry counts out his steps to move the targets all the way back to two hundred yards.

"Ain't right," Daryl mutters to Dianne. "Changin' the rules on me like that. Ain't what I practiced for."

"This is the standard match format," she insists.

Daryl shakes his head. "Ain't right."

"Fine. Then let's pull the targets back in to one hundred and twenty, if you feel like I'm _cheating_."

"Didn't say ya was _cheatin'_. Just said it ain't right."

"We can pull them in if you can't make two hundred. If you need the handicap, I'll give it to you."

"Don't need no damn _handicap_!" Daryl growls.

"Then what are you complaining about?"

"Nothin'. Ain't complainin'. 'S do this thing."

They take their places on the line with their bows at their sides. On the sideline, Elizabeth raises her hand. The whistle blows.

The archers rasp an arrow from their quivers and load. Daryl can't tell for sure where his arrows are hitting, not from this far away, but he tries not to think about that. He shoots by instinct, pretending he's hunting instead of target shooting. When they've both loaded their last arrows and pulled back their strings, there's another gunshot, and a walker crumbles in the field sixty feet from the archers. Dianne flinches slightly, but Daryl doesn't. The last two arrows thud into their targets.

As Elizabeth walks out to the targets to score them, Dianne glares at the shooters on the fence line. This time, it's Tara that shrugs apologetically, and calls, "It was getting close to you."

"Now _this_ isn't fair," Dianne tells Daryl. "All this distraction with the shooting."

"Got to deal with this kind of distraction all the damn time on the battlefield. But, hey, we can redo that round, if ya _need_ the _handicap_."

She glares at him, but says, "No. You're right. I shouldn't be distracted. I should be able to shut off the sound. It's just different when it's target shooting and not an _actual_ battle."

"Sure ya don't want a redo?"

"I'll accept the results."

He nods.

Elizabeth's kneeling at Dianne's target. The teenager pulls out all of the arrows and moves over to examine Daryl's target. Then she calls over one of Liam's groomsmen to help her make an on-the-line call. They both examine Daryl's target for a long while. Then Elizabeth pulls out all of those arrows, and they stand. Elizabeth walks all the way back to the archers and returns six arrows to each. Then she walks a few yards away from them, faces the audience, and announces, "Five in the yellow for Dianne, and one in the blue. Fifty-six."

That's pretty damn good, Daryl thinks, after flinching on the last shot. He's two points ahead, so to win this thing, he needs a fifty-six, too. He glances at Carol who is looking anxiously at Elizabeth. Daryl looks back at Elizabeth and half holds his breath while the young lady announces his score. "Four in the yellow for Daryl, one in the red, and one in the blue. Fifty-four!"

There's a big "Awwwwwwwwwww!" from the crowd.

"Unbelievable," Dianne mutters. "We tied _again_."


	41. Chapter 41

The crowd begins loudly chanting, "Shoot-off, shoot-off, shoot-off!" Those who have lined the platform of the fence to watch stomp as they chant, which rattles the metal siding on the fence. The noise of the crowd draws more walkers from the woods and into the fields, walkers that have probably been meandering their way toward the Hilltop for hours now in response to the noise from the reception. Over two dozen come lurching out of the trees this time, in two directions, from two sections of the woods.

Maggie hands Glenn, Jr. off to Roland and orders the spectators back inside the Hilltop gates. She stays behind as she ushers them all in.

As the audience retreats, Dianne and Daryl exchange looks. "Tie breaker?" Daryl asks.

"Whoever kills the most walkers," Dianne agrees.

Daryl nods. "Winner takes all."

Maggie's hand is on the gate now. "Get in!" she shouts to them.

"We're stayin'. Gonna be our tie breaker!" he shouts back.

Maggie shakes her head, but she goes inside the Hilltop and swings the gate shut behind her.

Daryl shouts up at the shooters on the fence. "Don't fire! We'll take care of 'em all. Gonna be our tie breaker!"

He sees Carol has ascended to the platform now, and although she urges Aaron and Tara to lower their rifles, Daryl notices that after she does so, she takes the safety off hers. She's going to let him compete, but she's not going to let him get bit. _Love always protects._ "Good luck!" she calls to Daryl.

The walkers are closer to the field now, scattered and lurching, all somewhere between a 150 to 250 yards away. "Start on the count of three?" Daryl asks.

"One," Dianne says.

"Two," they say together.

" _Three._ "

Arrows soar through the air and lodge in the heads of walkers, one after another. Half a dozen fall at the hands of each archer. With only six arrows in their quivers, however, Dianne and Daryl have to run and recover to shoot again.

It's tight, because the fallen walkers are now too near the lurching ones. Daryl puts the toe of his boot on the head of one walker and slurps his arrow out while looking at another stumbling near. _Damn_ it's close. He's frantically reloading when an arrow from Dianne's bow takes the approaching creature down from the side.

Daryl whirls, finds another target in the distance, and shoots. He runs a few yard to a nearer, former target to recover a spent arrow. The arrow is well-lodge in the walker's head, and while he's tugging, another walker growls toward him from the west. Daryl yanks harder, and the arrow snaps off in his hand. "Shit!" He thinks of dropping his bow and grabbing his hunting knife, but there's a gunshot, and the approaching walker falls. Carol has taken care of it.

Daryl breathes a sigh of relief and runs to recover another arrow. He hears another gunshot and looks behind himself. This time, it's Tara who has taken down a walker that was near Dianne.

After those two shots, the watchmen restrain themselves and let the archers yank and load and shoot until over two dozen walker bodies lay strewn across the silent field.

Daryl and Dianne catch their breath as they survey the tree lines to the west and north, but there's no sign of more.

"Let's count our kills," Dianne says, and Daryl nods. They prowl the bodies and recover arrows and meet in the middle of the field.

"Ain't exactly sure," admits Daryl, since they had to pull arrows and the adrenaline was pumping, "but I know I got either fourteen or fifteen."

"I got fourteen for sure."

Daryl, uncertain of his victory, looks around and sighs.

"There are thirty-one fallen walkers total," Dianne tells him. "Two were shot by Tara and Carol. I know I got fourteen. So that means you got fifteen. You win."

He looks at her suspiciously, surprised that she's conceding his victory, and doing so even when he's not certain of his own kill count. "Ya sure?"

"I'm sure." Dianne holds out her hand to him. "Congratulations." Her grasp is firm as she shakes. She releases his hand and says, "If I had to lose to someone, I'm glad it was you." She walks back toward the gates, her longbow held at her side, her back less straight than usual, shoulders drooping.

The triumph doesn't feel as good as he thought it would. But then he hears the solitary clapping on the platform of the fence. Carol, whose been watching, has deciphered the results and now applauds his victory. Chin held high, he looks across the field to her and thinks of his promised prize.

[*]

Scores of people are on the rooftop now, and, for the first time that Rosita's seen, women and children are up there , too.

"I think they're having some kind of community meeting," Khalid says as he looks through his binoculars.

"On the roof? _Why_?"

"Maybe because they're using that radio."

A man rolls a cart to the edge of the wall beneath the angel Moroni. On the cart sits a large box with speakers, a transceiver, and a tuner.

"I guess we're going to find out if that antenna actually works," Rosita says.

The golden spike the angel sits atop is wrapped with antenna wires, and on the angel Moroni's head sits a large pair of rabbit ears.

"This would be a good time to count the camp," Khalid suggests. "You do women and children. I'll do men. Then we'll cross-check."

They come up with forty-one men (including five or six male teenagers), fourteen women (including three or four female teenagers), and seventeen kids (including babies).

One of the men, who holds the microphone, pushes the button down, speaks into it, and then releases it. Every adult falls to one knee before the radio, except those who are holding babies. Some of the younger kids still stand. The adults lean in and appear to listen intently.

"I guess it works," Rosita says, though they certainly can't hear it from their perch so far away. "Why are they all kneeling?"

"Maybe it's just a comfortable way to listen when you have no chairs."

"Or maybe they're worshiping whoever's voice is coming through that radio," Rosita speculates. She can play Khalid's guessing game, too.

Khalid runs with her theory: "Perhaps it's some overarching leader speaking to them. Maybe they have more communities. More Temples throughout the country. Maybe their Prophet is _preaching_ to them through that radio."

"And who's their Prophet?" Rosita asks.

"Someone who leads another well-equipped Temple, maybe," Khalid speculates.

"Either that," Rosita says, "or it's just some random guy in his mother's basement who's screwing with them all."

Khalid laughs.

[*]

Carol's lips on Daryl's neck send crazy shivers down his spine. She helped him return the targets to the armory, and they're down here alone, in the hazy light from the late afternoon sun that sifts through the high window. Daryl wasn't expecting his reward so soon, but when they came down here, she backed him against the cinderblock wall. He leans against it now, with his charcoal shirt unbuttoned, as she trails kisses from his neck down his bare chest and lowers her knees to a soft, padded, empty gun case she's thrown on the ground as a pillow.

"Oh, hell yes," he murmurs while he watches her slowly unbuckle his belt. "That's a good, good girl, Carol."

She pops his snap loose and tugs his zipper down with a slow rasp while he reaches down to unbutton her shirt just enough to slip a hand inside. He plays with one breast through the lacy fabric of her bra while she slides loose the single button on the flap of his boxers and draws him out.

Daryl's eyes fly shut when Carol leans forward and swirls her tongue around his tip in one tentative lick. "Fuck yeah." He yanks down the cup of her bra and squeezes a bare breast. "That's good," he encourages her. "Just right." When her mouth closes completely over him he groans, pinches her nipple, and slides further into her mouth. She draws back. "Sorry," he murmurs. "If'n ya don't want – "

"- I want to. Just….can you let me be in control a little?"

"Mhmmh…Sure."

She takes his tip into her mouth, and he has to fight the urge to move. He melds back into the wall and enjoys the shy explorations of her tongue. His growls of pleasure seem to give her confidence, and soon enough she takes him more fully.

"Aw fuck, Carol, that's good." She begins to work on him in ways that make his knees almost buckle. He ends up slipping his hand out of her shirt and gripping the metal support of the nearby shelf to hold himself up.

Eventually, he can't stop himself, and he starts to move slightly. When he's close to exploding, he groans, "Gonna cum" and thrusts instinctively. She slides her mouth quickly away with a gasp and then finishes him with her hand.

He's still trembling from the release when she apologizes.

"Nah, no, 's great." He grabs two fresh gun cleaning cloths from the nearby shelf and tosses her one for her hands. Still breathing hard, he cleans himself, yanks his pants up, buckles and zips, and then tosses the rag in a trash can.

Carol stands and throws her rag away as well. "I'm sorry I didn't do it all the way. I just – "

"-S a'ight. 'S why I warned ya. 'N case ya didn't wanna. Felt damn good. Felt _fantastic_. A'ight?"

She wraps her arms around his neck. "It felt good making you feel that way. You _really_ seemed to like it."

He chuckles, low and satisfied. "'Cause I did." He pulls her close and kisses her.

Upstairs, the armory door creaks open. Maggie's voice drifts down, "…since we use more ammo than you, it's a trade worth considering."

Then Roland: "I agree. You show me yours and I'll show you mine."

Carol and Daryl break apart and scurry to button their open shirts. By the time Maggie and Roland reach the bottom stair, Carol is busying herself with pretending to look at a stack of empty gun magazines. "I could use an extra one of these for my AR-15," she says. She turns around and pretends to startled. "Oh. I didn't hear you two come in."

Maggie looks curiously at the empty soft gun case on the floor near the wall and at Daryl's shirt, which has been rebuttoned unevenly because in his haste he put the top button in the third hole down. "I'm just showing Roland a few things in case Ezekiel wants to trade."

"That's what we were doing, too." Carol looks over at Daryl with twinkling eyes. "Daryl was just showing me a few things. But we're done now." Carol heads up the stairs.

Daryl nods to Roland and Maggie while avoiding eye contact with either of them and follows Carol. She bursts through the armory door at the top of the stairs, giggling. After she shuts the door behind them, he smiles, catches her eyes, ducks his head, and laughs in a single huff of air. "Close call," he says.


	42. Chapter 42

Because everyone left the Temple roof, Khalid and Rosita have moved locations and now watch the bridge. They're munching on dried plums in a slow, multi-course dinner of finger foods. Three kids, probably around six, seven, and eight, ride big wheels back and forth over the bridge. The teenage girl and boy who are probably supposed to be supervising them are clearly flirting with each other.

"Are those the same two that were making out on the grounds?" Rosita asks.

"Same girl, different guy. This one's three inches taller."

"So she's already being groomed to accept multiple husbands?"

" _Groomed_ ," Khalid repeats. "So cynical. Don't all parents attempt to raise their children in their own culture with their own values?"

"I never would have pegged you for such a cultural relativist."

"I didn't used to be. I had it all figured out when I was younger. I was going to have the perfect wife and six kids."

" _Six_ kids?" she asks. "That's how many you wanted?"

"When I was younger. Did you ever want children?"

"It's why my high school sweetheart and I broke up. We got engaged when I was twenty, but he wanted kids right away. I wanted to wait until I was at least thirty-five."

"Why?" he asks.

"I wanted to get well established in my career. I saw my mother struggle as a single mother. I didn't want to end up like her if some man left me."

"What career?" Khalid asks.

 _"_ I started as an EMT for an ambulance service, but I wasn't making much, so I joined the military to be trained as an army mechanic. I thought I'd serve my time, learn the skills, and then open my own shop when I got out. But somehow I ended up in explosives."

"Ah. So that's where you learned to blow things up. Your reputation precedes you. I heard all about what you did in the War with the Whisperers."

"Yeah?" Rosita asks. "Why did I never notice you before the festival?"

"We fought together a couple of times. You just didn't notice me until you were prowling to get laid."

"I wasn't _prowling_ to get laid."

"Stalking, then," Khalid says. "I'm just glad _I_ met your party at the Kingdom gates instead of Roland."

"Roland's not my type."

"No?" Khalid asks. "You don't like them tall, dark, and handsome?"

"I mean I was looking for a one-night stand that night. He didn't seem the type."

"And I did?" Khalid asks.

"Well…you _did_ jump right in bed with me."

"Touché."

"But I guess I was wrong about you being the _one-night_ type."

"Got more than you bargained for?" he asks.

She smiles. "Yes, but…you're starting to grow on me."

[*]

Daryl is almost finished giving Carol a tour of the Hilltop. She's seen it whenever she's come to trade, but she doesn't know the ins and outs and hasn't toured the external fields behind the rear fence.

"What do ya think so far?" Daryl asks as they near the back edge of the outer fence.

"It's gotten really big." Carol thinks the Hilltop is cluttered and crowded, dusty and dirty, and yet the truth is that the prison was danker and people were closer together when they lived there. Maybe she's been spoiled by the Kingdom.

Daryl stops walking. "'N here we are. Outdoor fields." He points to the crude, barbwire fencing that surrounds the crops. "Holds back the deer n' stray walkers. Wouldn't work to stop human thieves. Can just cut the wire with tools, but if we catch someone filchin', we just bring 'em in and feed 'em, let 'em settle once we decide they're safe. That's how we got my neighbors in the next tent over. Gary and Jane. Back in April. They's stealin' cabbage."

"You have a lot of corn," she observes as they turn and head away from the rear fields and back around toward the front gates.

"Yeah," Daryl grumbles. "Eat corn with every damn meal these days. But we finished that gristmill by the stream. Show ya that tomorrow. Eugene got it workin', made a bit of corn flour and corn meal already."

"We'd happily trade for that. We're making potato flour, but all by hand. We don't produce much."

"We ain't got enough to trade yet, and the water's gonna freeze 'fore long. Mill won't run. But come late spring…we should have pounds of flour. Vodka too, maybe, if Maggie'd let us. But she won't."

"And she's right not to. You can't be wasting food for booze."

"Y'all do it," he says. "With the mead."

"Well, mead making's a religious passion for Brother Ignatius. And Ezekiel believes firmly in freedom of religion in the Kingdom."

Daryl snorts.

"The monk's hives produces a lot of honey. We can afford it."

"We need beehives. Where'd ya get 'em?"

"From the monastery where we found Brother Ignatius living alone. We transported everything. The bee hives, the canned food, the barrels of mead and wine. He was a bargain find, that monk. A little touched in the head, but productive." She looks out at the field they're passing on the side of the Hilltop. "This one's fallow?"

"Yeah. Got to rotate 'em."

"What do you do for education? For the children?"

"'Prenticeships. 'Cept we start 'em younger than y'all. Usually by twelve. 'Course, Andy n' Lisa are in their twenties. But they wanted to learn to hunt, so I trained 'em. Ain't great, but ain't bad neither. Gonna 'prentice Little Ass Kicker to me in a few years."

"What if Judith doesn't want to hunt?" Carol asks.

"She will."

Henry didn't want to cook with her, but Daryl's probably right. Judith would be thrilled to go anywhere and do anything with him, especially if he starts her young. "So what do you do for education _before_ the apprenticeships? Do you have classes? A school?" The historic, one-room schoolhouse on the property looks like it's being used to house a family of five.

"Parents just teach 'em. 'Cept the ones ain't got no parents. Then someone picks up the slack. Enid's teachin' Judith to read. Aaron's teachin' her to count n' add and shit."

"Seems kind of disorganized." Carol regrets the words as soon as they're out, but regrets them more when he scowls.

"Works fine," he mutters. "Ain't none of these kids stupid."

"Sorry," she says quietly. "I wasn't insulting you."

"Nah. Just insultin' my community. The one I'm practically second in command of." He looks down at his boots making prints on the ground.

"Daryl, I'm sorry. We do things differently, the Hilltop and the Kingdom. It doesn't mean one of us is right and one of us is wrong. We're just…different."

He raises his eyes to her skeptically, like he doesn't really believe she means it.

"You have a lot of challenges here." She looks round at the fields. "You and Maggie walked into something that was already a bit of a mess, took the bull by the horns, and you've done a _great_ job with it. These people owe a lot to you."

He studies her face as if trying to decide whether her compliment is sincere. He must decide it is because he murmurs, "Mhmhm. Thanks."

They go back through the front gate. "Ya hungry?" Daryl asks her. "Ain't gonna be no communal dinner 'cause of all the food at the reception, but we can get somethin' from the pantry to snack on."

"I wouldn't mind a little snack."

"'S in the mansion. In the kitchen."

As they walk toward the mansion they pass several tents, including one that belongs to the teenage boy Carter, who played guitar at the reception. The Howell twin girls, along with Henry and Elizabeth, are hanging out there, as are Liam's two groomsmen. The groomsmen and the twins are playing cards, while the other three are just watching and commentating.

"Them two guy's a'ight?" Daryl asks Carol as they pass. "Liam's groomsmen?"

"Derrick and Jared? They're decent, why?"

"'Cause they's hangin' out with a couple fifteen-year-old girls. 'N they look ten years older. What are they? 25?"

"24 and 27. And they both have serious girlfriends back at the Kingdom."

"Them girlfriends young?" he asks suspiciously.

"No," Carol assures him. "The cradle robbing's going the other way on that one. Their girlfriends are 34 and 36." Large age differences among couples are inevitable in this world. She's glad Liam and Enid are only three years apart and that they didn't start flirting until Enid was eighteen. Not-quite-nineteen is too young to get married, Carol thinks, but she understands Enid's hurry. Girls grow up so fast in this world, and without birth control, they're bound to become mothers sooner. Better they be serious about the fathers. But Carol regrets marrying too young, and she was four years older than Enid. Of course, the error wasn't really in marrying young. The error was in marrying Ed.

"Then why ain't they hangin' out with the grownups?" Daryl mutters.

"Maybe the grownups aren't playing cards." She laces an arm through his. "Really, Pookie, they're good men. You don't have to worry about them. Those cougars back at the Kingdom keep them plenty busy."

He huffs. "Thirty-six ain't old 'nuff to be a cougar."

"No, that's not nearly as ancient as me," she agrees.

"Stahp."

She glances back at Derrick. "I bet I could keep up with a twenty-seven year old."

He glowers at her.

"I'm teasing. I can barely keep up with you. We might have to just cuddle tonight."

"Don't mind," he says. "Ain't like I ain't got laid once already today. And blown."

"Shhh!" Carol looks around, but there's no one within earshot. She giggles in embarrassment and doesn't feel the least bit ancient. "God, you make me feel like a teenager again."

"Well…yer the first steady girl I've had since I _was_ a teenager."

Carol startles as they pass a trailer and Dianne's angry voice drifts out. _It's like you wanted me to lose!_

 _I didn't want you to die!_ Tara shouts back. _Maybe you'd appreciate that if you weren't so insanely competitive!_

 _That walker was nowhere near me!_

"Trouble in paradise," Carol murmurs as they keep walking by.

"Dianne ain't right for Tara," Daryl says.

"Oh yeah?" Carol asks. "Why do you say that?"

He smirks. "What, ya want me to put my Dr. Phil hat on?"

Carol's eyes twinkle. "Please do."

Daryl reaches up with his left hand – because Carol's arm is laced through his right arm - and pretends to put on a hat. Carol chuckles. "A'ight," he says. "Dianne's too stiff. Too serious. Too independent."

"Independent?" Carol asks. "What's wrong with that?"

"Ain't nothin' wrong with it. Just Tara needs someone she can take care of. Look out for. Like Denise." He bites his lip and looks down at the ground.

It's a good thing Dwight didn't settle at the Hilltop after the War with the Saviors, Carol thinks, that he lived at the Sanctuary. Daryl might have killed him eventually, if they had to live in the same camp. But instead Dwight died fighting the Whisperers for the Alliance.

"'N Dianne needs a real tough man," Daryl says.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. Needs someone who can shit nails. Like Merle."

"Why do you say that?" Carol asks.

"'Cause she just crushes women."

"But how did you know she was bisexual?"

"Didn't." As Daryl leads her up the stairs of the mansion, he says, "Just know what a woman needs when I got my Dr. Phil hat on."

Carol laughs. She stops when the front door swings open and Jesus walks out. "Have you two seen Maggie?" he asks. "I can't find her anywhere. Aaron's got Glenn, Jr., so _he's_ fine, but I don't know where _she_ is."

"Oh shit!" Daryl curses, pulling away from Carol's arm.

"What?" Carol asks in alarm.

"Think maybe ya shut that armory door all the way while they's down there?"

"Well, yeah, I shut it behind ourselves when we left, but we left it unlocked."

"That padlock's just for extra security," Jesus explains. "The armory door locks automatically from the outside."

"She and Roland been trapped down there an hour now," Daryl says.

"And it's hard to hear knocking from that part of the mansion," Jesus notes. "It's way in the back. Almost sound proof. They probably gave up."

"Better let 'em out," Daryl mutters.

Carol smiles. "Or maybe we should give them the night down there alone together."

Jesus chuckles. "If it could possibly end in Maggie getting laid and _relaxing_ a little bit, I'm all for it."

"Ain't nice," Daryl says. "Sun's 'bout to set. No light down there. No water. And nowhere to piss."

"Then let's go let them out," Carol agrees.

"You two do it," Jesus says. "I've been drafted into playing Candy Land with Olivia and Judith."

"Better you than me," Daryl tells him.

They go inside, and Jesus veers off toward the library where Aaron is putting together a puzzle with Glenn, Jr. and Gracie on the floor. Judith and Olivia have Candy Land spread out across the coffee table. Two sleeping bags lay rolled up against the shelves because Jerry and Nabila have claimed the room for the night. At least two people will be put in Enid and Liam's room, since they're on their honeymoon, but it's not yet clear where everyone else is sleeping.

Daryl and Carol wend their way toward the far back of the mansion to the armory. The door is still unchained but shut. Carol turns the knob and slowly pulls back the door. It's quiet down there, except for the sound of smacking lips. She spies Roland and Maggie, sitting on the second to last stair of the staircase, their feet on the basement floor, kissing.

She puts a finger to her lips to tell Daryl he should be quiet, and then she looks around for the wooden door stop. She finds it and uses her foot to slide the wedge between the door and the door frame so the door doesn't close all the way. Then she ever so slowly lets the door shut until it hits the wedge.

She and Daryl creep quietly away.


	43. Chapter 43

The kids are no longer riding big wheels across the bridge, but the teenagers are still there, leaning against the railing and locking lips. The girl lets the young man put a hand on her breast – no swatting away this time. Eventually, the teenager creeps his way _under_ her shirt.

"I feel like such a voyeur," Rosita says. "Eugene used to watch me and Abraham like this."

"What?"

"He'd peek in the van when we were fucking. It always pissed Abe off, but I felt bad for Eugene. I think that's as close as he's ever gotten to sex."

The teenagers suddenly pull abruptly apart. A woman walks across the bridge, stops, and looks at them suspiciously. She says something to the teenage boy that causes the boy to duck his head and scurry off the bridge. Then the girl leaves across the other side with the woman.

"I'm guessing Mama's not too happy with boyfriend number two," Khalid says.

"Their next generation is going to be genetically fucked up. At least we have three communities with completely unrelated people. I mean, those three men who were offering the apples to that pregnant woman – they looked a _lot_ alike."

"Brothers, probably," Khalid replies. "But, see, that's just the thing about brother marriage. If brothers marry the same wife, that family's genetic material all stays with the one wife's offspring. Fewer of the kids should be biological cousins with other women's children than if those brothers all took separate wives. I mean, provided the women aren't related."

"You sound unsettlingly okay with all this."

"It's ingenious for perpetuating the species within the limits of the given circumstances."

"Do you think that's why they're doing it?" she asks. "Making a conscious decision to _perpetuate the species_?"

Khalid shrugs. "Who knows. Maybe they believe they've experienced a new revelation in these end times, and they're the chosen ones who will rebuild the earth by following it."

The bridge is empty now, and the sun is starting to set over the distant trees, so they both set down their binoculars. Khalid slides a little closer on the blanket and drapes an arm around her. "Shall we watch nature's show?"

Rosita lays a head on his shoulder as the sun sets in soft rays of orange and red, leaving brush strokes of dark purple and midnight blue across the sky.

[*]

"You know, I don't really need a drink tonight," Carol tells Daryl. "Why don't you have your whiskey neat, and I'll just have a glass of water with a slice of that lemon." It's the politest way she can think of to avoid this awful-sounding cocktail he wants to make her.

"A'ight," Daryl agrees, and they settle in the camp chairs on either side of the TV tray with their drinks. He has the tent flaps down for privacy, but the fire glowing in the oil barrel outside paints shadows on the canvas, and on his nightstand of books, the flame of the oil lamp flickers, filling the tent with a halo of soft light. "Don't least want a cherry?" he asks.

"I'll try a cherry."

Daryl puts his drink on the table and twists open the jar. The lid is tight, and it takes him a while, long enough for Carol to admire the bulging muscles of his arms, which are bare because he's wearing only his sleeveless undershirt. She's colder and has on a sweatshirt.

Daryl fishes out a cherry and leans across the tray to extend it to her. She sucks it out from between his fingers. "Fuck…" he says. "That's hot."

She smiles, chews, and swallows. "Not bad. I don't think they've spoiled."

Daryl fishes out another and pops it in his mouth. Then he sucks the sweet liquid off his fingers one by one.

"Fuck," she says, in imitation of him. " _That's_ hot."

"Don't make fun."

She smiles. "I'm not. I told you what that makes me think of."

He looks at her with a lecherous grin. "Want me to put a cherry on yer cherry later and suck it right off?"

"I guess that depends where you imagine my cherry is."

He chuckles. He puts the lid back on the jar of cherries, sets it down on the table, and plucks up his whiskey glass.

Carol takes a sip of her water and says, "Roland doesn't want to approach the Temple. Ever." She probably shouldn't be revealing any part of the Council's deliberations, but she thinks Roland is being too narrow to rule out even the _possibility_ of approach, and she wants to talk it over with Daryl. She doesn't tell him Roland didn't even want to inform Oceanside and the Hilltop. She wonders how Maggie would react if she knew.

"Roland's right," he replies.

Carol blinks in surprise. "But what if they appear peaceful and well stocked for trade?" Carol asks.

He shrugs. "What if they do? We're all survivin' just fine without 'em. Member Woodbury? 'Member Terminus? 'Member the Saviors? No reason to be flingin' a stick 'round in a world of hornet's nests. We got peace. Got the Alliance. 'S nuff."

" _Is_ it enough, though, for the next generation? Don't you see it happening, people already making matches between the kids in their minds, wondering what four-year-old is going to end up married to what eight-year-old some day? What if this group has children? What if they can expand the world for our children?"

"Hell ya care 'bout that for? Henry's got's lots of options. 'Lizabeth." He holds up a finger. "The Howell twin girls here." He holds up two more. "Rachel over at Oceanside."

"Oh God, not Rachel."

"'N there's some eleven 'n twelve-year-old girls in the Alliance. Might could go for one of them when they's all older. 'S got at least ten choices already. He'll be _fine_."

"How would you like to be limited to _ten_ choices?"

"A man only needs _one_ woman."

Carol smiles. "Keep in mind that Henry is not the _only_ boy in the Alliance. He's got competition. And what about Judith?"

"What 'bout her?" he asks.

"Says she's seventeen when she _really_ starts to take an interest in boys, and say she has her eye on anyone from age fifteen to twenty. There are only nine boys in the Alliance who will be that age then. And plenty more girls."

"Don't matter. Judith's gonna be a nun."

Carol snorts. "Your little girl is going to grow up one day, Pookie."

Daryl frowns.

"If we could bring more communities into the Alliance…that might be good for the next generation," she says. "That's all I'm suggesting. We'll have to hear what the scouts say, of course."

"Mhmhm," he murmurs, which she takes as an – _I don't agree, but I'm not going to argue with you about it right now._

She moves onto other topics for a while, but he seems to be straining to make conversation, almost like he's performing for her. This evening routine isn't as relaxed as it is in her trailer. "You know," she says, "we don't have to do in the evening exactly what we do at my trailer…We can do what _you_ want."

"Don't mind doin' this," he says.

"But what would _you_ being doing right now if I wasn't here?"

"Workin' on my bike, likely."

"Then work on your bike. I can hand things to you."

"Ya serious?"

She nods.

He smiles. "Hell yeah!"

[*]

Rosita settles her head on the pillow of the sleeping bag and slides her back against Khalid's chest before zipping the bag the rest of the way up around them. Khalid rests an arm around her waist, kisses her earlobe, and whispers something to her in Arabic. She doesn't know what he's saying, but based on the low tone, she can only assume it's something sexy.

It works. She starts to squirm a little. Khalid nips at her neck and then returns his lips to her ear. He continues his low whispering while unsnapping her pants and tugging down the zipper. He pauses as if waiting to see if she'll stop him, and when she doesn't, he slips his hand inside. Rosita puts the foot of one leg down flat on the sleeping bag in order to bend her knee, spread her legs, and give him better access. English mixes with Arabic while he plays with her, hot indecipherable whispers punctured with familiar words: "… my beautiful…sweet…wet…naughty…." The pleasure mounts and mounts, but then the cans jangle suddenly.

"Don't stop!" she insists, jerking her hips harder around his fingers.

The cans jangle louder, and she jerks faster, but before she can crest, he pulls his hand away. Rosita groans in frustration.

The sleeping bag bunches and shifts as Khalid scurries out of it. He seizes the long sword he's left nearby on the ground and strides, in his stocking feet, past the faint embers of the dampened fire and toward the far end of the camp, where a walker is tangled up in the barbwire and thrashing in a futile attempt to free itself.

Khalid thrusts his sword angrily into the creature's head and rips the blade back out. The walker's body slumps heavily, and it brings the wire down with it.

Khalid sighs and goes to work untangling the creature so he can reset the wire. "A little help," he says, and Rosita, snapping and zipping her pants, makes her way over to him.

[*]

Daryl runs a hand gently over the rough, half-constructed frame of the bike.

"You should touch me like that," Carol teases.

He looks back over his shoulder at her. "Stahp."

"I'm serious. The way you look at that bike. I'm a little jealous."

"Need the wrench."

Carol looks through the toolbox now resting on the platform of his open tent and hands him the wrench. He squats down on his haunches, his back to her.

She leans back against the platform of the tent. "How'd you learn so much about mechanics? Did you teach it all to yourself?"

"Not 'zactly. M' uncle was a mechanic." He loosens something on the frame, lays the bolt aside, and readjusts it. "Tore my first engine down with 'em when I's eight."

This is the first time Carol's ever heard Daryl mention an uncle. "Which side of the family?"

"My mama's brother."

"Did you enjoy working with him?" she asks.

"Yeah. 'S good mechanic. Damn natural at it. But he didn't come 'round much after Mama died. He 'n my daddy never got 'long. After she died, he'd come by once a year for my birthday, take me out to the local gas station for a soda and a candy bar, 'n give me ten bucks cash. On my sixteenth, though- showed up with a bike. Built it 'emself from throw away parts. Cheap ass parts, but it ran damn well. Said he'd just opened his own shop, two towns over, 'n the bike was all mine if I'd ride it down to the shop and work for him six hours on Saturdays." He stands and hands back the wrench. "Screwdriver."

"Philip's head or flat?"

"Flat."

She hands over the screwdriver and watches him squat down again. He's got some lovely, strong thighs she thinks. "So did you?"

"'Mhm. Had to give up six hours paid work at another job, but it was worth it. Learned a shitload that year."

"So he didn't pay you at all?"

"Gave me that bike. 'N he fed me on break. Bought me big ass sandwiches from the deli. Chips and soda, too. Would of worked for free another year or two, just to learn, ya know. But I couldn't."

"Why not?" she asks as he continues to tinker with the bike.

"'Cause his wife tried to fuck me, got pissed when I said no, told Uncle Joey _I'd_ come onto ' _er_. So he ran me out the shop with a tire iron, told me never come back."

"That's terrible! How _old_ was she?"

"Thirty. Second wife. Fifteen years younger 'n 'em. I felt like that poor bastard Joseph, when Potiphar's wife got 'em thrown in the clink."

"I didn't know you knew your Bible so well."

"Don't. Just know the stories. M' nana used to tell me all the stories. Lot of fucked-up shit in that book. Just like real life." He stands again and hands the screw driver over. "Gonna have to hammer that sharp bit down. Give me the big one."

She puts away the screwdriver and hands him a hammer. He squats down on his haunches again and goes to work. The flap of the tent across the way flies open and a man Carol doesn't know paces out. He's dressed in tan long johns and has a big, bushy beard. "Daryl! For Christsake, man! It's after sunset!"

Daryl stops hammering, stands, and glowers at the man.

Carol takes a step forward. "Hi," she says, putting on her friendly neighbor smile. "I'm Carol." She holds out her hand.

Warily, the man in the long johns extends his. "Gary."

Carol shakes quickly and lets go. "Listen, Gary, seeing as Daryl hunts in the mornings to feed the entire camp, and he has his leadership duties as well, when would you _prefer_ him to work on his bike? During hunting hours, or at night?"

The man's mouth falls slightly open.

"Because if you _prefer_ ," Carol tells him, "he _could_ work on this tomorrow morning instead of putting dinner on your table."

"I…uh…." the man stutters.

"I'll tell you what. Let me get you a couple of pairs of shooter's earplugs." Carol hops up onto the tent, unzips an outer pocket of her backpack, and pulls out two little plastic bags with soft orange plugs in them. She hops down off the platform and hands them to him.

The man reluctantly accepts the ear plugs, mutters something under his breath, and retreats into his tent.

"Damn." Daryl's lips twitch up slightly. "Ya told him."

She leans back against the platform. "Now get down on your haunches and get back to work," she orders. "I like looking at your ass."

"Stahp," Daryl complains as he squats down, but he glances back over his shoulder to see if she's watching, and when he's satisfied that she is, he gets back to work.


	44. Chapter 44

Carol snuggles closer to Daryl under the comforter. The fire in the oil barrel burned out in the night, so it got colder, but his body is like a heat generator. "Mornin'," he drawls, and she loves the slow, masculine sound of that particular word falling from his lips.

"Good morning," she replies and kisses him.

They share slow, lazy kisses for a while, until he begins to inch his fingertips under her sweatshirt. He pauses when there's the sound of voices and horses trotting past. The camp is fully stirred, and Carol's people are already planning to return to the Kingdom. "How late is it?" he asks sitting up suddenly. "'S bright."

She reaches for her watch, the one with the interminable battery, which she set on his stack of books. "Nine o'clock."

"Shit. Usually try to hunt at sunrise." He rubs his eyes. "Ain't never slept this hard or long."

She smiles. "And we didn't even have sex last night."

He grins. "Must of been that afternoon blow job. Relaxed me for _hours_."

Carol sits up and kisses him before crawling out of bed. "Well, let's get hunting."

When they reach the Hilltop's gate, the Kingdom's cart is loaded and waiting. Liam's groomsmen, sitting atop their horses, look tired, as if they stayed up late socializing last night. Judith is with Aaron, waving goodbye to Olivia, who sits on the back of the cart between her mother and her mother's boyfriend. Henry forms his hand into a step for Elizabeth so she can easily climb up into the cart, and she thanks him.

"I'll be back mid-morning tomorrow," Carol tells Henry. "You behave."

Henry gives her a look that says – _You're embarrassing me!_

"Don't worry, Ms. Flannagan," Elizabeth says. "I'll keep Henry in line." She pats the empty space next to her on the cart, and Henry boosts himself up with his arms, turns, and sits beside her.

Maggie is at the gate to see them off, but, strangely, Tara is not. Dianne sits atop her horse right at the gate, waiting impatiently for it to open, with Jerry and Nabila behind her. Before getting into the driver's seat of the cart, Roland asks Maggie, "When will I see you again?"

Maggie chuckles. "Well, I suppose whenever you next have business at the Hilltop."

He smiles. "Then I'll have to drum up some business soon." Still smiling, Roland climbs into the cart, and Maggie swings open the gates for them. Dianne thunders through first.

When the cart and horses are cleared, Daryl and Carol walk out on foot to hunt.

[*]

Rosita yawns and takes a big sip of the hot, instant coffee Khalid has just handed her. He sits down on the log beside her and sips his own. "We slept in late," he says. "So why am I so tired?"

"Because we probably only got five hours of sleep last night." They took turns getting up to kill walkers throughout the night and reset the wire.

"We should move the camp tonight," he suggests. "There's too many of them around here, and I think they've caught scent of us."

" _You_ should move camp tonight. I'm heading home today."

"What?" he asks with alarm. "Why? I thought you were having a good time."

She smiles because he says it like he thinks they're on a romantic weekend getaway. There's something endearing about that. "I _am_ having a good time," she assures him. "But the Hilltop thought I was coming back for the wedding. They probably won't worry that I took an extra day to scout, but if I'm not back by tonight, with the Council meeting being tomorrow…and I'm scheduled to report…they're _going_ to worry. They'll probably send someone looking for me, which would be an inconvenience for them."

"Oh," he says with disappointment. "Yes, I see."

"But I don't have to go right away. Let's watch the roof and then the bridge. Have lunch together. Then we'll go back and get your rapier, _if_ the walkers have left. But then I need to leave. I don't want to be on the road after sunset."

"Fair enough," Khalid agrees. He sighs. "But then I'm here all on my lonesome until Monday afternoon when the next scout relieves me."

[*]

Carol doesn't want to admit that she's bored, but she is. They've just been lying here in this one spot obscured by trees, stomach down, weapons outstretched, for an _hour_. And she's not supposed to talk. At all.

For a man with such a short fuse at times, Daryl sure does have deep reservoirs of patience when it comes to hunting. They followed deer tracks for a while, before he insisted they hunker down. They aren't far from the stream. Water rushes and gurgles in the distance. Daryl decided this was an area that deer traipse through in order to reach the stream, and so they're simply lying in wait until the creatures come to drink. Carol almost wishes a walker would come up on them so there'd be some excitement, but they've only encountered one in the woods today, and that was well before they took this position.

She turns her head slightly to look at him and wonders what he's thinking, or if he's thinking at all. He must be, because his eyes are darting everywhere, like a Secret Service agent scouring the scene – right, left, straight, left, right. Then they catch hers. He smiles. "Havin' fun?" he whispers.

"Yes," she lies. "I mean, it's not the most comfort – "

He puts a finger to his lips and she falls silent.

[*]

No one was on the roof this morning, so they're watching the bridge now. So far, the only thing they've seen is a solitary man walking over it, muttering to himself.

"Do you think he's crazy?" Rosita asks.

"No. I talk to myself all the time. It's a good way to think through things."

"Why don't they have any guards?" she asks. "Anyone on the roof watching? It's just _weird_."

"I can only assume they haven't been attacked in over a year, if at all."

"What would they do if they _were_ attacked?" she asks. "Shoot their arrows at guns?"

"For all we know, they have an entire arsenal in the Temple vault."

They watch a while longer and then agree to hike down to the flats so they can backtrack along yesterday's path of retreat and reclaim Khalid's rapier.

[*]

Daryl was right, of course. The deer do eventually traipse through the forest toward the stream – a buck, two doe, and three fawns. They pause to munch on some foliage. Daryl points to himself and points to the buck. Then he points to her and also points to the buck. Carol surmises he wants them _both_ to shoot at the same animal. He holds up three fingers, and she nods. He returns his hand to his bow.

"One," he whispers. "Two. Three." Daryl quickly pulls the trigger of his crossbow while Carol shoots her rifle.

The deer frantically take off running in all directions as Daryl scrambles to his feet, reloads, and shoots again. Carol can't even tell if she hit the buck, but she can see Daryl's two arrows in it as she gets to her knees. She's just gotten to her feet when a third arrow hits the fleeing buck and it completely vanishes through the woods.

"What now?" she asks.

"Gonna bleed out and slow down. Now we track it 'n catch up to it 'fore any walkers do. 'S move." Looking at the signs on the ground, he starts to jog, and she jogs after him.

[*]

Rosita's rifle swings from her shoulder. She has a hand on the hilt of her knife, in case they meet with walkers. The hilt of Khalid's long sword rises between his shoulder blades.

"If there's more than nine walkers left, we forget about the rapier," she insists. "Because I'm not shooting again. Too loud."

"Why nine? Why not eight, or ten?"

"Because nine is my favorite number."

"I'll keep that in mind," Khalid says. "What's your favorite color?"

"Gray."

"Of course."

[*]

It's not long before they catch up with Daryl's buck. It's slowed to a stumbling walk. While Daryl brings it down with another arrow and then kneels to put it out of his misery quickly with his knife, Carol shoots the four walkers that, aroused by the scent of blood, are lurching into the clearing. Then she looks over the fallen buck and doesn't see any sign of her bullet in it.

"Thanks for gettin' them walkers," Daryl tells her.

"Well, at least I'm good at hitting something. I didn't hit the deer."

"'S 'cuase I hit 'em first and he jerked forward. 'M sure ya were close."

"I bet you bagged a deer the first time you went hunting for one," she says. "Probably when you were thirteen."

"Twelve," he mutters.

"Maybe I should have spent more time learning to hunt deer than learning to trap. It's just, when I was completely on my own, I thought trapping was easier. Lay them out, check them in the morning. And I _did_ get by that way." She didn't set out to recall her banishment when she began talking, but now it rises like a bad after taste. "All by myself."

Daryl's eyes caress her cautiously. "'M sorry," he says. "Sorry ya went through that. Sorry I wasn't there when Rick– "

"-If you _were_ there, would you have _stopped_ him from banishing me?"

"Carol."

Her voice cracks when she admits her secret fear: "I wonder, sometimes, if you would have." She _knows_ she should let go of this, _knows_ she needs to put it behind her, but it still hurts. "Did you agree with what he did?"

Daryl sighs and sheaths his hunting knife. "Wasn't 'bout agreein' or disagreein'. Just felt like it was beyond my control. Felt like everythin' was beyond my control. The whole damn world. Like I's just caught up in it and couldn't do nothin' 'bout it. Shit started unwindin' all 'round. So I just…pressed on. Went through the motions. 'N after a while…didn't feel nothin' at all. 'N then I did again."

"Because of Beth?"

"She had hope. Didn't understand it. How she could, ya know, after we lost it _all_. Made me wanna have hope, too. 'N so I did. 'N then…she was just gone. Hope was just… _gone._ Again. 'N then…" He lets out an unsteady breath and shakes his head. "There ya were. M'Carol. There ya were, comin' through them woods after Terminus, like some kind of fuckin' angel, right when all my hope was dead."

Carol swallows, shoulders her AR-15, and looks down at her boots.

"C'mere," he says. " _Please_."

She does, and he wraps her up into his arms and kisses the top of her head. She melds to his chest and buries her face against his shoulder. "'M sorry," he murmurs. "Everythin' was so fucked up back then. But it ain't no more. 'Got a chance now. 'N I love you, Carol. So goddamn much."

Relief and sorrow, loss and hope, regret and love – a hundred emotions billow through Carol's heart and mind all at once, and a sob rips through her frame. She balls Daryl's shirt into her fists. He holds her through the crying until she steps back and wipes frantically at her face, and then he seizes her hand and kisses her tear-drenched palm hard with his chapped lips. He lets go, puts his calloused hands on either side of her head, and tilts her face up toward his.

Daryl leans down and kisses all her tears away.


	45. Chapter 45

Daryl and Carol are talking and laughing when they return to the Hilltop dragging the buck behind them on a make-shift sled. They deposit the deer with the butcher, Sharon. "Thanks for the hint about Father Gabriel," she tells Daryl. "We've got a date tomorrow."

Daryl nods.

"What was that about?" Carol asks as they walk away.

"She thought Gabe couldn't fuck since he's a priest. Told her he could."

Carol laughs. "A councilman, a hunter, _and_ a matchmaker. I don't know what the Hilltop would do without you." It hits her suddenly how true the last half of her words are. He's never going to want to leave this place, not when he's needed so badly.

"Gotta get cleaned up," he says.

Carol looks down at her blood-stained shirt, hands, and arms. "That's for sure." He made her help field dress the buck, so she could learn how, but now she's filthy.

They grab clean clothes by two fingers from the tent so they won't badly dirty them, and they throw them in a draw string bag. Daryl leads her to the back of the Hilltop to a pair of outdoor wooden stalls with swinging doors and no roof. The first stall is barely wide enough to fit them both. There are wooden wash basins inside, not very long or deep, with a plug for draining. It's much smaller, cruder, and colder than the Kingdom's communal bathhouse, but it's more private. The second stall is a bit wider and has a bench on which are stacked several clean towels. They set their clean clothes on the bench.

Daryl fills both basins in both stalls with water by squatting at a hand pump outside the stalls and filling buckets one by one, which he dumps in the basins. Then he takes a kettle of hot water he's heated on an outdoor fire pit and pours half of it into each basin to warm the water. He leads her into the first stall, where he sheds his blood-soaked outer shirt until he's only in his tan, sleeveless undershirt. She goes the same – which leaves her in a white tank top. She shivers from the sudden chill, but then gets to work scrubbing the blood from her hands and arms using a hard bar of soap.

Carol understands why he's filled two sinks. When their hands and arms are clean, the water is murky with blood. He pulls the plug and lets the water drain into down and out through a piece of plastic pipe that flows under the back fence of the Hilltop. "Move to the next one, and ya can clean whatever else ya want."

In the next stall, the basin is slightly larger, and there are four clean washcloths stacked on the back. Daryl flings two towels over the stall wall, takes off his undershirt, and leaves it crumbled on the bench. Then he takes off his boots and socks. They'll wash feet last, she supposes, because the floor they stand on is a dirty, black mat.

She follows his lead, stripping down to her bra and bare feet. They wash their faces first, one at a time, her and then him. Then he quickly cleans his chest and underarms before leaning back against the wall. "Yer turn."

"And what, you're just going to watch?"

He ducks his head and smiles.

Carol unclasps her bra and lays it on the bench. Daryl watches as she suds up the washcloth with soap and then begins washing her shoulders. The air is cold, but the water is warm, and his gaze is downright burning. She blushes, but begins to wash her breasts, like she knows he wants her to do.

"Yer a dirty girl, Carol," he murmurs, "better wash 'em slow and good."

She does, cupping and squeezing herself and dragging the washcloth slowly around each mound. She teases him by playing with her own nipples for a moment.

His breath grow raspy, and suddenly he's behind her. His lips tickle and nip the back of her neck. "So dirty," he murmurs. "Got to clean ya up." He reaches around and unbuckles her belt, unsnaps her pants, and yanks down her zipper. As her pants fall to the ground, all the gear on her belt clatters against the ground. "Step out." She does, and now she's in only her panties. "Wash yer back for ya?"

"Yes," she manages hoarsely, and he takes the wash cloth from her hand, dips it in the basin, lathers it again, and begins to scrub her back.

He pauses intermittently in his scrubbing to kiss the back of her neck, her shoulders, the spot between her shoulder blades. Warm water gives way to cold air, which gives way to his hot lips in a teasing assault of warm-cold-hot, warm-cold-hot.

"These panties 're gettin' wet," he murmurs. "Should we take 'em off?"

She agrees in a whimper, and he slides them down. Carol steps out, and as he washes her ass, he squeezes and kneads each cheek. He squats down and washes each of her legs, kissing each clean spot of flesh when he's done.

She parts her legs for him, and he slides the warm washcloth up one thigh. Before moving over and down the other, he teases her between her legs with a fingertip. She shudders and grips the wooden rim of the wash basin with both hands. After he's washed her legs, he stands again, rakes his teeth over her earlobe and growls, "Yer a dirty girl, sweetheart."

His warmth disappears suddenly. She sees the washcloth tossed haphazardly over the rim of the basin and hears the jangling of his belt buckle and his pants sliding down. She assumes he wants her to wash him the way he washed her and that he probably wants her to give him a hand job with the washcloth while she does so. But when she starts to lift her hands from the rim to turn around, he covers her hands with his, holds them in place on the rim, and pushes her against the basin again. Daryl nips at her neck from behind. "Ya can clean me after," he says, "Now hold on tight. 'N don't be too loud. People 'round."

The command sends heat rushing from her head down between her legs. Excitement, desire, and trepidation mingle together in an intoxicating cocktail of feeling. She's afraid she won't be quiet, so when he lets go of her hands to take her by the hips and position her the way he wants her, she grabs one of the clean, unused washcloths from the basins and slides it into her mouth like a gag before gripping the basin again. It's a good thing she does, too, because when he pushes into her suddenly from behind, she wants to scream in surprised pleasure. Only a muffled sound escapes around the washcloth.

"Aw, Carol, oh, fuck yes," Daryl growls as he pulls back and pushes in a gain, driving another shock of pleasure through her body. "You dirty girl."

He must clench his teeth together to keep the sound in, because his groans and grunts become entirely guttural as he thrusts. The wooden basin creaks and shifts on its legs, and water splashes up the sides.

Carol cums more quickly than usual, several thrusts before he does, moaning into her washcloth gag. Daryl's fingertips dig into her hips as he picks up speed, and his grunts turn to deep pants.

She can feel a second orgasm just beginning to gear up when he spills hotly inside her. She's disappointed and triumphant at once, sorry to have missed out on a second climax of her own, but pleased with the obvious strength of his. He pulls her tightly to his chest, shudders violently against her, and groans into her neck before stumbling back as if drunk. As she turns, his ass slams against the stall door, and he steps forward again, looking dazed.

Daryl struggles to catch his breath as Carol removes her make shift gag. She turns and dips it in the water and lathers it with soap. When she turns around, she asks with a smile, "So can I clean you _now_?"

He shakes his head. "Not yet. Too sensitive." He takes in a few more gulps of air before his breathing level. "'N I think I got a splinter in my ass from backin' up just now." She chuckles. He steps forward smiling, wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her hard before asking, "My plain vanilla like that toppin'?"

She wraps her arms around his neck with the washcloth in one hand. It drips now cooling water down his back. She nods, smiles, and kisses him again.

Their tongues are still tangling when voices near, and they draw apart. Daryl takes the cool wash cloth from her and cleans himself quickly while she seizes the towel from the stall wall and wraps up.

"I thought I saw them walking back here," comes Aaron's voice.

"In the bath stalls maybe," Jesus replies. "They were hunting. Probably needed to scrub up."

The voices are glowing closer. "But only one of the stall doors is closed," Aaron says.

"You are so naïve sometimes," Jesus teases. The stall door shudders with a knock. "Hey, lovebirds," Jesus calls. "When you're finished up in there, could you come play Candy Land with Judith?"

"Please," Aaron begs. "Because Jesus and I are done licking lollipops for the day."

Daryl snorts and Carol bursts into a tittering giggle.

"Get your minds out of the gutter," Jesus tells them, but he's laughing when he walks away.

[*]

Nearly all of the walkers Khalid and Rosita left clawing at the embankment of the creek are still there, but they aren't clawing anymore. They aren't even standing.

They're fallen.

 _Dead_.

Shot through the head.

"What the fuck?" Rosita seizes her rifle from off her shoulders and readies it. "Did the Temple people do this?"

"They never come out!" Khalid exclaims. He unsheathe his long sword and looks around frantically. "That chain and padlock, you saw how rusted it was. The grass by the gate was overgrown."

"Your rapier is gone, too," says Rosita, looking in the creek bed at the walker that _used_ to have Khalid's rapier stuck in its head. She turns in a circle, eyes darting in every direction, and stops suddenly in her sweep of the area. Her hand shaking, she points across the creek bed to a tree trunk on the other side.

Khalid turns and looks, and his eyes widen. There, jammed into the trunk of the tree, is his rapier. The weapon's tip spears a piece of notebook paper against the bark.

Khalid slips slides down the embankment, splashes through the creek, climbs over dead walkers, and runs toward the tree, Rosita close behind him. He yanks out his rapier, and the paper flutters to the ground. Rosita snatches it up, and together they lean in and read the hand-written note:

 _Dear Watchers,_

 _I know you've been watching my people._

 _But I've been watching you._

 _So take care, and watch out for yourselves._

 _Sincerely,_

 _The Prophet_

 _P.S. Don't look up._


	46. Chapter 46

On the way to the mansion, Daryl and Carol pass the cooks preparing dinner. It won't be the buck, which will go into the smokehouse, but they're making some kind of mixed meat stew. "Want to taste?" Katrina asks Daryl, and she dips a tasting spoon into the cauldron.

"Mhmhm." He takes the spoon from her and slurps a little off of it. It's bland. As usual. He turns to Carol and feeds the rest of the spoonful to her.

She swallows it down. He can tell she's not impressed. "Mhmhm," she lies. "Good. Though…maybe a little more of that garlic." She points to the chopped garlic on the counter. "And probably eight more pinches of salt and five of pepper."

Katrina narrows her eyes at her. "We try to conserve our herbs and spices. We aren't _rolling_ in them like the Kingdom."

"Well, we aren't exactly _rolling_ in them either," Carol says. "But a little goes a long way. And the garlic, already cut like that, won't last – "

"- I think we can handle the cooking, thank you," the other cook, whose name Carol doesn't know, interrupts.

"Sorry," Carol apologizes.

"She's just tryin' to help," Daryl says. "'Cause she damn good at cookin'. Hell, if Crocodile Dundee gave me huntin' tips, _I'd_ take 'em." He grabs her hand and pulls her on.

Carol smiles. "Crocodile Dundee?" she asks.

He lets go of her hand. "Couldn't think of a good hunter example."

She chuckles. "I had such a terrible crush on him in elementary school."

"Man was fifty!"

"I don't think he was _that_ old when the first movie came out. But, yes, he was considerably older than a 9th grader."

"'Least he ain't short like all yer other celebrity crushes."

"He was five foot nine. One inch taller than Gopher on _Love Boat_. One inch shorter than you."

Daryl leads her up the mansion stairs. "'S weird ya know that."

"Gopher's height?"

"Mine. I don't even know it." He opens the door for her and waits for her to go in.

The Candy Land game is waiting for them, as is Judith, in the library. The fire burns behind a gate in the fireplace, and Carol warms her hands by it. Being naked in that bath stall was cold after all the hot action was over. Daryl sits down on the library floor and helps Judith set up. The little girl kneels on the oriental rug beneath the table.

As Carol settles on the couch, she spies Daryl peaking at the cards and ordering them in the deck. She raises and eyebrow, and he gives her a _Be quiet_ look.

He sets the deck down on the board and says, "A'ight, Little Ass Kicker. Yer first."

"No," she says. "My Daryl's Carol goes first!"

Carol smiles at her new nickname.

"Nah, youngest to oldest," Daryl insists. "Yer first."

"No!" Judith insists. " _Guests_ go first."

"'S a'ight. Carol don't mind. Ya can go first."

"My Daryl's Carol goes first," Judith repeats.

"Guess I'm going first," Carol declares and turns over the top card of the deck. It's the ice cream card. _That's_ what Daryl was up to. He was trying to get Judith to win quickly. "Well, would you look at that! Aren't _I_ lucky." Carol moves her piece all the way up the board, over the winding road, to a space not all that far from the end.

"Now my Daryl goes!" Judith declares.

Daryl, glowering a little, turns over a purple card and moves two spaces.

Judith turns over a yellow card and lands one space ahead of him.

On her next turn, Carol draws a red card and moves six full spaces. She's now just seven spaces from the end. "Well aren't I lucky!"

Daryl inches forward three spaces on his next turn, and Judith four. Then Carol draws another red, which puts her one space from the end of the game. Daryl gets the gum drop, which flies him forward a bit, while Judith frowns sternly as she moves only one space.

Carol turns over a purple. "Look at that!" she says. "I won the game in just a few turns. That must be very unusual." She looks pointedly at Daryl, who glowers at her.

"My Daryl keeps playing," Judith insists. "See who gets second place."

"I think I'm going to go visit with Maggie before dinner," Carol says as she stands. She pats Daryl on the head. "You have fun, Pookie."

Carol finds Maggie working in her study/bedroom, with the door open, and Glenn, Jr. playing with a set of blocks before the fireplace. "Hey Carol," she says when Carol knocks on the inside of the open door. "Come on in. Have a seat."

Carol sits in the big chair across from Maggie's desk and sees the whiskey bottle that is one-fourth depleted. "Don't worry," Maggie says. "I'm not emulating Gregory. You want some, though?"

"No thanks."

Maggie sits back in her chair. "So…"

"I want your opinion on the Temple," Carol says.

"Well, Roland certainly doesn't think we should approach it."

 _He doesn't even think we should have told you_ , Carol thinks, though she doesn't tell Maggie that. No sense throwing a monkey wrench in that budding romance. Roland's error in judgement on that issue aside – and Carol does see it as a severe error in judgement – Roland is a good man.

"He wasn't even going to tell me about it, if you hadn't insisted I know," Maggie continues.

"Oh," Carol says in surprise. "You _know_ about that?"

"And I suppose Ezekiel wasn't going to tell me either?" Maggie asks.

"The Council deliberations are private, as I'm sure you understand."

Maggie nods. "I understand you were on the Hilltop's side. And I appreciate that."

"I was on the side of the _Alliance_ ," Carol clarifies. "And I also thought it was in the _Kingdom's_ best interest that the Alliance know. Like you said, we need to stick together." Carol looks at her curiously. "It didn't upset you that Roland wanted to keep the information from you?"

"He was wrong to do that," she says. "And I wasn't happy to learn it. I gave him a piece of my mind. But I suppose he only told me because he felt guilty about it. Or maybe he just felt guilty about making out with someone he'd been lying to by omission."

Carol feigns innocence. "You and Roland - "

"- You know it. I saw you at the top of the stairs. I pretended not to, because...well...I was enjoying it. He told me later that night about his reluctance to share information on the Temple, and he apologized for it. He said he was afraid the Hilltop or Oceanside might approach on its own and stir up trouble. I told him we should all agree that it has to be unanimous. The leadership of _all_ three communities agree to approach, and we approach together, or we don't approach at all."

"That sounds reasonable to me," Carol says.

"I won't have an opinion on whether we should or not until Rosita returns and reports. She's _still_ not back. But our Council Meeting isn't until the morning. She may be gathering more intel. I expect she'll arrive after dinner tonight."

"So…." Carol says, glancing at Glenn, Jr., who just clapped because he managed to stack three blocks. "Roland?" She turns back and raises an eyebrow.

Maggie smiles. "He's charming. And handsome. _And_ a good kisser. But…" She shakes her head and looks over at her son. "I miss Glenn still. Every day. And part of me feels like it would be dishonoring him to pursue that."

"It wouldn't be," Carol assures her.

"If Daryl died," Maggie asks her. "Would you move on?"

No, Carol thinks. If Daryl died…that would be it for her. Daryl's the first great love of her life, and he'll be the last. But Maggie is a decade and a half younger than she is. "It's been three years," Carol tells her. "Glenn would understand. You don't have to rush into anything serious, but…no harm in having a little fun. You could use it."

Maggie laughs sharply. "Why does everyone keep telling me that? Am I supposed to be partying while I'm running the Hilltop?"

"They care about you," Carol says. "That's all. They want to see you happier."

Maggie nods. "I think it's about dinner time. You want to get Daryl and head over?"

Carol stands. "He's trapped playing Candy Land with Judith. He'll be happy for the rescue."

[*]

Daryl and Carol retire early to his tent after dinner. They make love playfully, talk and laugh, and fall asleep much sooner than they planned.

Monday morning comes to soon.

Daryl pretends to be asleep when he feels Carol stirring. She cuddles up against him and lays her head on his chest, and still he pretends to sleep. She can't say goodbye and start packing if he's not awake. But after she starts kissing his ear, he can't pretend anymore. He turns his lips to hers. They savor each other's mouths, and he can feel himself stirring to hardness. But then Maggie's voice breaks through the tent. "Daryl! I need to talk to you!"

"Go away!" he growls. "I got company!"

"I know you have company. I need to talk to Carol, too."

Carol sighs, throws back the comforter, and crawls out of bed to dress.

When they get out of the tent, Maggie is standing anxiously with a hand on the butt of her 9 mm.

"This better be damn important," Daryl grumbles.

"Rosita didn't come back last night," Maggie says. "She's _still_ not back."

"Shit," Daryl mutters.

"Maybe she decided to stay with Khalid," Carol suggests. "He was there scouting, and he wasn't supposed to leave the Temple area until this afternoon."

"We were supposed to have a Council Meeting at ten," Maggie says. "And she was supposed to debrief us on what she found. I'm _sure_ she would come back in time for that. And it's eight already."

"Already?" Carol asks. They must have slept eleven hours. They _never_ sleep like that.

"I hate to do this," Maggie says to Daryl, "because you're our primary hunter, and Liam isn't back from his honeymoon until tomorrow. You're our best hunter, but you're also our best tracker."

"You want me to track Rosita?" Daryl asks.

"I want you accompany Carol back to the Kingdom. When Khalid returns tonight, ask him if he's seen Rosita. Find out what you can from him. Then track her first thing tomorrow morning. "

"Yeah," Daryl agrees. "I'll do that."

"Why don't we hunt before we leave?" Carol asks him. "Khalid isn't due back until the late afternoon, so we don't need to be at the Kingdom right away."

"Ain't ya got stuff to do?" he asks. "In the Kingdom?"

"I do. But someone can cover for me. Or I can make it up somehow…sometime. You may be gone a few days tracking. I'm sure you want to leave behind another deer."

Daryl nods, relieved that she's willing to stay longer at the Hilltop so he can provide for his people.

[*]

There's no funny business in the stall when Carol and Daryl clean up after the hunt, which resulted in a doe. They don't strip down today, except to remove their outer shirts to scrub hands and arms and neck and face. They dress again silently, return to his tent, and Daryl packs his bag.

They leave on Carol's horse, in the late afternoon, Daryl in back, his arms around her gripping the reins. He hasn't said a word for hours.

"Daryl?" she asks, because she knows it's ridiculous to ask, "Are you all right?"

"Worried," he answers. "'Bout 'Sita. She's m'friend."

"I know," Carol says softly. "We'll find her."

"Worried 'bout these Temple folk."

"You're worried they may be dangerous," she says.

"Worried they took 'er. Tortured 'er. That they'll know 'bout the Hilltop."

"The Kingdom," Carol agrees. "Oceanside. The Alliance."

"Worried they'll want what's ours."

Fear settles like a weight in the pit of Carol's stomach, heavy and expanding, clawing with dark vines up and around the hope for the future that once bloomed in her heart.


	47. Chapter 47

An eerie glow of yellow-white light forms a cloud in the darkness when Rosita blinks her eyes open. It takes a moment for her to focus. She's lying on her side on the hard, cement floor beside a made-up queen-size air mattress she may have rolled off. She's thirsty. So horribly thirsty. And she's pissed herself.

Where the hell is she?

Rosita expects to discover that her legs or wrists are bound, but they aren't. She sits up freely and leans back against a cinderblock wall. The back of her head throbs. Her eyes focus on the light, and, eventually, she takes in the room. There are no windows. The light radiates from a lamp on a table with two chairs that stands flush against the opposite wall. There's also a stack of dishes on the table, some flatware, and what appears to be a stack of thick manila folders.

A floor-to-ceiling bookcase looms in one corner of the room. The top shelf contains fresh, folded bed linens and a few boxes of light bulbs. The second shelf has clothes and an electric kettle. The next three shelves are double stacked with bottles of water, and the last two contain triple-stacked packages of freeze-dried storage food. There are two doors, one to her left, and one to her right.

"Khalid?" she manages through her dry throat. Her eyes dart all around the room, but there's no sign of him. "Khalid!"

[*]

Daryl and Carol stop long enough to eat a light dinner, but neither is particularly hungry. Two pieces of deer jerky and a few swigs from a shared canteen constitutes the meal. They kill two walkers and search a rusted-out car that yields an unopened, completely sealed pack of cigarettes. Daryl eagerly rips the plastic off with his teeth.

"Those things will kill you, Pookie."

"Not 'fore somethin' else does," he insists. "'Sides, been a long time since I found an unopened pack. Might not be completely stale." He lights one up and takes a long, slow drag before blowing the smoke out in a contented sigh. "Oh fuck yeah."

"I can make you say that, you know," she teases.

He smiles, a very little bit, but it leaves a slightly grim look on his face.

"Sorry," she mutters. "Just trying to lighten the weight."

"Ya do. Ya always do." He holds the cigarette out to her. She takes it from between his fingers and has a puff.

"Hmm," she says. "It's only a bit stale."

"Mhmhm." He slips out another, slides the pack into his front shirt pocket, and lights up.

[*]

Rosita puts a palm flat against the wall and struggles into a standing position. Her legs feel weak. Her head pounds, and that's when she realizes there's something strapped to it. Rosita feels around and finds gauze holding a now fully defrosted ice pack to the back of her head. She unravels the gauze and lets it and the ice pack fall to the ground. The lump on the back of the head is dry but tender.

Rosita stumbles to the bookcase. Her thighs chaff from the dry piss between them. She draws down a bottle of water, cracks it open, and guzzles it greedily. She doubts it's poisoned. If whoever took her wanted to kill her, they certainly could have by now.

There's a trashcan next to the table, and she tosses the empty bottle into it and then examines the lamp. It's not a kerosene or oil lamp. It's an electric desk lamp, with a light bulb, plugged into an outlet. She thinks it must be a mirage. Rosita clicks the lamp off and the clicks it on again. She unplugs it to see if it's actually running on batteries, and the light goes out. She feels in the darkness for the socket and plugs it in again. Rosita blinks when the bright light comes on.

Next she examines the large, solid iron door that seems to lead out of the room. There's no handle on this side, no way to open it. There's a cut-out at the bottom, about the size of a large doggie door, but there's no way to open it from the inside either, no matter how hard she pushes on the indentation.

So she goes to the door on the other side of the room, which does have a knob. She expects to find it locked when she turns the knob and pushes, but it swings open and smacks something.

Legs.

Khalid's legs.

The putrid scent of vomit assaults her nose. Khalid lies on his back on the ground before a stainless steel toilet. Vomit pools in the toilet, splatters his shirt, and crusts on the floor. Gauze holds a cold pack to back of his head, too.

Rosita falls to her knees, shakes him, and calls his name, over and over.

Finally, his eyes flutter open and fix on hers. "Have I died?" he asks hoarsely. "Have I gone to Paradise?" He smiles weakly. "You're a good start, but where are my other seventy-one virgins?"

Rosita laughs, splutters, and then almost sobs. She bends down and peppers his forehead with kisses.

[*]

When Daryl and Carol reach the Kingdom, the sun has just begun to set. Daryl spurs the horse through the open gates and rears it to a stop inside. Carol vaults off and looks up at Jerry on the watch platform. "Is Khalid back?"

"No," Jerry replies. "And Avanaco left hours ago to relieve him."

"Ya sent _that_ guy?" Daryl asks as he dismounts.

"He's a good scout," Carol tells him. "Quiet in the woods. He's the one who found the Temple in the first place." She looks back up at Jerry. "We need to assemble the Council. Now."

[*]

Rosita looks at herself in the mirror above the stainless steel bathroom sink. Her hair scatters itself in wild disarray. The skin beneath her eyes is puffy, and her forehead is pocked with the pattern of the gauze she removed, but otherwise, there's no obvious damage.

A row of four, bright light bulbs shine above the mirror. An electrical cord hangs down from the wood backing. Rosita clicks the roll switch on the cord backward, and the lights turn off. The bathroom goes dark except for the faint glow of the lamp seeping in from the table outside. She rolls the switch forward until it clicks, and the lights turn on again.

A metal shelf stretches all the way across the wall beneath the mirror. The shelf holds soap, aspirin, toothpaste, two new tooth brushes, two combs, a hairbrush, towels, washcloths, a small pyramid of toilet paper, and two disposable razors. The sink has a deep basin, and Rosita pushes one of the faucet handles back. The faucet burps and sputters, and then clear water runs out of it, splashes into the bottom of the sink, and vanishes down the drain. When she pushes back the lever marked H, the water warms. She shoves down the stopper plug and lets the basin fill.

Meanwhile, Khalid looks at the vomit in the toilet bowl. He yanks the flush lever, and there's a loud "woosh" like in an airplane toilet. The vomit sucks down. The toilet refills with a tiny amount of water. "Remarkable," he says. "Our captors have electricity, plumbing, _and_ sanitation."

"Come on," she mutters. "Let's get cleaned up and changed. I saw clean clothes on a book shelf out there." She hands him a washcloth, and Khalid drags himself to his feet.

[*]

The Kingdom's Council sits around a circular table in the library. Daryl is present, too, leaned against and half-sitting on another table on the outside of the circle.

"This is precisely why I was afraid to tell the other communities," Roland says. "Because I didn't want them to send scouts who might be captured, tortured, and coerced into revealing the location of all of our communities."

"Yeah, well," Daryl growls. " _Yer_ scout's likely been captured, too."

"Well I didn't want to send _him_ either," Roland insists.

"We don't know Khalid's been captured," Dianne says.

"Maybe he and Rosita are just having a lover's dalliance," Nabila suggests.

"Had 'n important meetin' this mornin'," Daryl insists. "'Sita wouldn't of missed it just to fuck around. She wouldn't leave us hangin' and worryin' like that."

"I think we need to assume something has happened to them both," Carol says.

"It might not be capture," says Jerry, optimistically at first. "They might just have been devoured by walkers." When the words are out, his mouth freezes in a grimace. "Not that that's better," he concedes. "Oh God. I hope they're okay."

"So what's our plan?" Nabila asks.

"At sunrise, I go trackin'," Daryl announces.

"And I go with him," Carol insists.

Daryl catches her eyes, and his lips twitch into a light smile.

"I don't know if we can spare you for that, Carol," Ezekiel says, and Daryl's lips level into a scowl. "We should confer." The king looks from Daryl to Carol and then back to Daryl. "Would you excuse us, Daryl?" he asks. "Our Council needs to deliberate. _Privately_."

Daryl looks at Carol, who only nods. A light rumble sounds in his throat, but he pushes himself off the table he's leaning against. "Be in yer trailer," he tells Carol and paces out of the library. The door slams shut behind him.

[*]

Rosita and Khalid have cleaned themselves up and changed into the solid gray sweat pants and sweat shirts they found on the shelves. Rosita had to pull the drawstring extra tight to keep the bottoms up.

They now sit at the table shoveling down the freeze-dried meals they opened and reconstituted by resting them in hot water in the bathroom sink. Their filthy clothes, and the towels they used to clean up themselves and then the bathroom floor, lie crumpled in the wicker laundry basket in the corner of the bathroom.

They don't speak. They just eat. To Rosita, it feels like she hasn't eaten in a full day.

Maybe she hasn't.

[*]

Roland shakes his head. "We just invite more trouble, sending scouts after the scouts. Avanaco is out there now. Let's wait and see if _he_ comes back."

"We can't just leave Khalid," Jerry says.

"What if he _has_ been captured?" Nabila asks.

Roland leans in. "Then what's to keep Daryl and Carol from getting captured, too?"

"I'm with Roland," Dianne says. "I think we should wait and see if Avanaco returns. He's due back in three days."

"Daryl's not going to wait three days to track Rosita," Carol insists. "He's anxious. He'll leave in the morning, regardless of what we decide here."

"But that doesn't mean you have to leave _with_ him," Ezekiel says. "Let the Hilltop bear this risk, if they wish to. There's no reason the Kingdom should risk _you_. You're one of our most valuable members."

"And so is Khalid," Carol replies.

"If Khalid is captured," Roland asks, "if Rosita is captured, what do you propose to do? Free them, just the two of you? You and Daryl together?"

"I propose to _find out_ , at least," Carol says. "Report back. And then we can decide where to go from there."

"Where is there to go?" Roland asks. "Besides either leaving them behind, or warring to free them? What are we going to do? Take on an entire camp full of unknowns for two people? Go to war and risk _everything_ we've built, all the peace we've earned? This is exactly what I was afraid would happen!" He slams a palm down on the table, and it rattles. "How many times have you gone to war now, Carol, when war could have been avoided?"

"I don't know," she admits. "I don't know what could have been avoided."

"Terminus could have been avoided," Roland says, "if your people hadn't lain down their weapons before walking in there. If they'd said, well, _no thank you_. We'd rather not come in if you want us to give up our guns."

Carol looks at him in surprise.

"Maggie told me about Terminus," he explains. "Now let's talk about the Saviors. If Alexandria hadn't taken out that outpost and slaughtered those men and women in their sleep, there would have been no war."

"Maybe," she says. She's wondered about that sometimes herself, on lonely and introspective nights. "Or maybe war would have come eventually anyway. And maybe we would have starved to death if we hadn't made that deal with the Hilltop."

"Well, we're not starving _now_ ," Roland tells her.

"All of that was before we met," she replies. "None of that had anything to do with you. You don't know what it was like in the circumstances."

Roland's tone softens. "I'm not criticizing your past decisions, Carol."

"Really?" Carol asks. "Because it sure _sounds_ like you are."

"I made all the same sorts of mistakes. I lost people, too, between the start and the Kingdom. My wife. All but one of my children. In-laws. Cousins. Friends. My entire camp, in time. But I _learned_. Eventually, I _learned_ to avoid trouble. I can't believe you haven't learned, too."

"I'm not saying I would necessarily support a war if we find Khalid and Rosita are captured," she says. "But I want to _know_. And what if they're just wounded and alive? We could _rescue_ them."

"That's true," Jerry ventures hesitantly. "I mean, we should probably find out if they're hurt. Maybe they just got mauled by a bear or something, and they're…you know…slowly dying."

"So many cheerful theories you have, Jerry," Ezekiel says.

"I'm just trying to be helpful."

"We should wait for Avanaco," Dianne insists. "And then assemble again, whether he returns or not. We can decide where to go from there."

"Avanaco doesn't know Khalid and Rosita are missing," Carol says. "He may be walking into a trap himself. We should find and warn him, too. Now Daryl's leaving at sunrise, with or without me. And I'll tell you right now, it's not going to be without me."

Ezekiel sighs. "You won't accept the Council's ruling on the matter?"

"We haven't made a ruling on the matter," Nabila says.

"No," Ezekiel agrees, "But it seems Carol is making it clear that her actions will not be affected by our ruling."

"Zeke," Carol says. "I'm not letting Daryl do this alone. Our man is out there, too. _Two_ of our men now."

"Which is why I'm hesitant to make it _three_ ," Ezekiel assures her. "Do you not understand that I'm concerned for _you_ , old friend?"

"And I'm concerned for Daryl," she tells him. "Who's a much _older_ friend."

"You can talk him out of it," Roland says. "He'll do what you ask of him."

Carol shakes her head. "You overestimate my power over him."

"I don't think I do," Roland says.

"Then you overestimate my willingness to use it in ways that might damage our relationship."

At this, Roland sits back in his chair. "Very well."

"Let's just vote," Dianne says.

"All in favor of sending Carol and Daryl to track Rosita and Khalid at sunrise tomorrow morning?" Ezekiel asks. "With instructions to gather information and report back as soon as possible, but _not_ to engage?"

Jerry hesitantly raises his hand. Carol raises hers. Then Nabila. Dianne and Roland's hands remain down. "I think we should wait," Dianne repeats. "For Avanaco's return. Or lack of return."

"I think we should wash our hands of this Temple," Roland insists. "I think we should have washed our hands of it from the start."

"My Advisors are divided." Ezekiel announces. "But not evenly. I will accept the majority counsel. Tomorrow morning, Carol shall leave with Daryl to track Khalid and Rosita. She shall leave with our blessings, our hopes, and plenty of our ammunition."


	48. Chapter 48

Rosita washes down the last of her freeze-dried meal of enchiladas, beans, and rice with a sip of water from a bottle. Khalid ate the Chili Mac. They opened the packages with a pair of scissors they found on the shelf. Whoever kidnapped them took all their weapons, but they have the scissors and the disposable razors in the bathroom. If their captor ever comes through that door, they can stab and slit his throat, although maybe that's not the best idea, given that they don't know what lies beyond that door.

"What do you remember?" Khalid asks. "Because the last thing I remember is trying not to look up."

"I remember looking up," Rosita replies. "And a net falling on us from the trees above. You tried to cut out of it with your rapier. I was going for my knife when something hit me in the back of the head. Who hit me and with what I don't know. Then I came to on the floor by the mattress. That's it."

"I don't remember any of that," he replies. "I just remember the note, and then everything going black, and then opening my eyes to you." He reaches behind himself and touches the sore spot on his head. "I'm thinking he hit us both at once, with a crowbar or a baseball bat or something like that. Why do we remember so little?"

"I feel groggy, like I was drugged. Maybe we came to and then we were drugged? And then we passed out again?"

"Possibly." He looks at the empty bag before him and then glances at the empty water bottle.

"I don't think the food or water is drugged," Rosita says. "At least, I don't feel anything, and I drank a bottle before I found you in the bathroom. Where do you think we are?"

"In the basement of the Temple, maybe. There's electricity and running water. The Temple had both. We couldn't have gone far. We can't have been unconscious more than a day."

"Why not?"

"It just seems unlikely. My gut said it missed three meals: yesterday's dinner, today's breakfast, and maybe a lunch."

"Do you still have that wind-up pocket watch I saw you check yesterday?" she asks.

"No. Our captor took it."

No watch, no windows, no way of marking time. Rosita gets up and investigates the room more closely. "You haven't seen _anyone_?"

Khalid tosses their empty meal bags in the trash can beside the table. "No one." He draws the stack of manila folders that are resting on the table in front of himself. "But it seems they intend to keep us here for a while, given all the food and water."

"For what purpose?" she asks.

"Your guess is as good as mine." He opens the top manila folder in the stack.

"What's in there?" Rosita asks.

"Just blank paper and two pencils." He puts it aside and opens the next folder. "Same thing. Blank paper and two pencils. And a little metal sharpener." He puts that folder aside, too, but when he opens the third and last folder, he says, "This one has a typed manuscript inside. _The Final Testament: the Revelation of the Prophet for the Enlightenment of the Post-Apocalyptic Saints._ "

"That's a long-ass title."

"There's a subtitle, too," he says. " _The Vision of God for the Rebuilding of the New Earth_."

"So we've been abducted by a religious lunatic?" she asks.

"It would appear so." Khalid turns over the title page of the manuscript.

"What does he _want_ from us?" she asks.

"To leave his followers alone, perhaps," he replies. "Or to convert us with this Scripture he's left us."

Rosita shakes her head and sits down opposite him. "I didn't see any brown people on that roof. I don't think they're recruiting outsiders."

"Then why not simply kill us?" Khalid asks.

Because maybe he wants to find out where they came from, Rosita thinks. Maybe he wants to know what he can take by Holy War. She stands, walks over to Khalid, and leans down to whisper in his ear, in case the Prophet is somehow listening in, "You and I have to swear, right here and now, that we'll die before we say shit about shit."

She hopes Khalid understands her, that she means their people, their communities, their locations. Khalid shuts the folder, stands, puts a hand on her arm, and leans down to whisper back. "I can _easily_ agree to dying, Rosita. And I can even promise to _attempt_ to withstand torture." He pulls back, looks into her eyes, and says, with a hint of fear and sadness, "But neither of us really knows our limits, do we?"

[*]

Roland corners Carol by the lockers on her way out of the school. "I hope you don't think I'm a monster," he says, "who just casually wants to leave Khalid and Rosita for dead. Khalid is my friend. But I love this community, and I love its people, and I don't want to see it _destroyed_. My willingness to sacrifice two lives for the many – that doesn't make me a monster, does it?"

Carol thinks of the sickness that swept the prison. She thinks of David and Karen. "No. That doesn't make you a monster. But maybe…" She clenches her teeth. "What if the sacrifice turns out to be unnecessary? Then you have to carry that burden."

Roland rubs his face with his hands. He sighs.

"The choices we make in this world," she says, "they're like choosing between a rock and a hard place. And when we make them, we don't even know what we've really avoided. I can disagree with you, Roland, without thinking you're a monster. I hope you can do the same."

"Of course."

"This is why we have a Council. To consult each other. To hear each other out. We're not always going to agree, but this way no one makes these choices entirely alone." Rick banished her without consulting anyone. And she killed Karen and David without consulting anyone. Daryl ran off in pursuit of Dwight without consulting anyone. Carl stowed away in a truck and went to confront Negan without consulting anyone. They used to do these things all the time without consulting anyone – all of them. "The imperfect decisions we have to make, we can't bear them alone anymore. But at this point, I really think it's better we discover as much as we can about what happened to Khalid and Rosita. Maybe we risk drawing more attention to ourselves by going out there and tracking them. But if we don't, we risk not knowing anything. We risk being taken by surprise if these people really do have ill will against us. If they find out where we are."

Roland swallows. "Be safe out there," he says.

[*]

When Carol comes into her trailer, Daryl is sitting in the mostly-dark on the love seat. The kerosene lamp burns on low on the end table beside him, and he's slowly sipping a glass of whiskey. "Didn't think ya'd mind," he says. "Since ya don't like it."

"I told you I'm keeping it for your visits," she says as she sits down next to him. "Turn up the lamp a little, please."

He does. He's taken his boots and socks off, his leather vest and belt, too, and his feet are up on the table. The thick belt – with all of its gear, is folded in half and resting on the nightstand by the bed. The vest is draped over one of the blue plastic chairs. "Have a good meetin'?" he asks. "Get told what to do by the king? Say, _yes, sir, yer royal highness_?"

"I don't like your tone."

"Mhm? Yeah, well, I didn't like gettin' kicked out the room without ya even sayin' so much as _boo_."

"Do you really think Maggie would have let _me_ sit in on one of _your_ Council meetings?" she asks. She glances at the level of liquid in the whiskey bottle on her teacher's desk. It's lower. A _lot_ lower. And he's barely eaten since lunch. "I see that's not your first one." She has too many bad memories of Ed's drunken rages. "But it's damn well going to be your last."

"Yeah? Who says so?"

" _Me._ Unless you want to sleep somewhere else tonight." She holds his eyes. "I mean it."

Daryl glowers at her, but then he looks down in the glass, swishes it, and watches the liquid slosh up the sides. He leans forward and sets it down hard on the coffee table, away from himself, and flops back against the back cushions of the love seat. "Ain't tryin' to be an asshole," he mutters. "Just comes natural I guess."

"You're upset," she says. "You're worried. But so am I, Daryl. I'm on _your_ side. I stood up for you in that meeting after you left. I made it clear to the Council that I'm leaving with you to track Khalid and Rosita tomorrow."

"Yeah? Yer still comin' with?"

"Of course I am. We're gathering information. Finding out what we can. But we're not engaging. Not alone. Not just the two of us."

He looks at her skeptically. "'N the big man's okay with you comin'?"

"I'm not without influence in my own community. Did you really think I wouldn't support you?"

His eyelids droop, and then open. He sighs and looks into her eyes. "'M sorry," he says.

When Ed said he was sorry, as he often did after a beating, Carol would always say, "It's okay." _It's okay._ Daryl hasn't beaten her. He's only a little drunk. And he's been a little rude. But even so, she won't say _it's okay_. She won't use those words that suggest he hasn't done anything wrong. So instead, she says, "I forgive you. We're both a little on edge, aren't we?"

"Yeah." He clenches his teeth. "Don't…" he chokes. His eyes are misty drunk. "Don't want to lose it all again." His voice chokes. "Not again. Not now. Not _now_ …."

"Shhh…" She draws his head to her chest and strokes the hair at the back of his neck.

[*]

Rosita squats before the iron door and pushes against the indentation again, wondering if it slides open somehow.

"So far this manuscript is an interesting amalgam," Khalid observes. "It seems to draw from a wide variety of sources - the _King James Bible_ , the _Book of Mormon_ , _the Koran_ , the _Bhagavad Gita_ , the _Washington Post_ news section, and _Star Trek_."

"Star Trek?" she asks.

"He quoted Spock once. And Captain Kirk once. Albeit without accreditation."

Rosita stands and laughs. "You were a Star Trek geek?"

"I may have attended a convention once or twice. My _boys_ liked the show."

She comes and looks over his shoulder at the tell-tale, light gray streaks on the page. "Is that _photocopied_?"

Khalid nods. "It was typed with an old school typewriter originally. But this is a copy. Maybe they still have working photocopiers in the Temple."

"If we're in the Temple," Rosita asks, "and their _Prophet_ is in the Temple…who the hell are they listening to on that radio?"

Khalid shakes his head. "Maybe we're _not_ in the Temple. Maybe we're in the Prophet's dwelling somewhere outside the Temple."

"And he has electricity too?"

"I don't know."

"Why wouldn't the Prophet want to live with them?" Rosita asks. "And…hell…why wouldn't he just take all the wives for himself, like Negan did?"

"I don't know," Khalid repeats.

"When is this Prophet going to open that fucking door!" she shouts. She lowers her voice. "And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

Khalid glances at the air mattress and smiles.

"Hell no," she says. "The Prophet is probably watching through peepholes somewhere." She glances suspiciously around the room.

"Well, God is _always_ watching," Khalid reasons.

"Not _my_ God. My God is _discreet_. My God lowers the curtain."

Khalid turns another page of the manuscript.

[*]

Carol kisses the top of Daryl's head and says, "Come on. Let's get to bed. We have to get up at sunrise tomorrow and head out."

Groggily, he pulls back and sits up. He stands, stumbles into the coffee table, mutters, and walks around it to the bed. She sheds her boots and socks and outer shirt and crawls in with him, and he pulls her close and buries his head against her shoulder. "M'sorry," he mutters again. "For all of it."

"All of what?"

"M'sorry for yellin' at ya at the farm, when I couldn't find Soph. Gettin' in yer face."

"Daryl, that was so long ago. You already apologized for that. You're not still feeling guilty about _that_ , are you?"

"'N m'sorry for ever doubtin' ya - even for a moment - 'cause of what ya did at the prison." Carol tenses. "Ya was just tryin' to stop it," he mutters against her. "Tryin' to save us. When Rick told me, I told 'em – sounds like ya 'n it _don't_ sound like ya. The wantin' to save us… that was you. The killin'…that wasn't you. But ya thought ya had to kill to save. I get that. I get that."

Muscles Carol didn't even realize were taut start to unwind.

"'N M'sorry. For not seein' it at Alexandria, how ya still didn't feel like ya belonged with the group. How hurt ya was. How damn hurt ya was."

Carol's arms tighten around him. She digs her fingers deeper into his hair. It's a strange relief, to have that pain acknowledged.

"'N M'sorry for drinkin' half yer whiskey. M'sorry. M'sorry for all of it. M'sorry…" He sniffles into her shoulder. "I been such a bad boy."

She might laugh at those last words if she didn't know they were belched up from a childhood of emotional and physical abuse. "Shhh…." Carol draws back. She kisses his lips, then his nose, then his forehead. She kisses the stray tear running down his cheek. "You're not bad, Daryl. You're _good_. You're a _good man_." She strokes his cheek with the back of her hand. "You're drunk. Go to sleep, Pookie. Just go to sleep." She rolls onto her back and urges him toward her.

He rolls in her direction, slings an arm across her waist, and buries his head against her breasts. Her shirt grows a wet with his tears before his breath levels into sleep.


	49. Chapter 49

Rosita squats down and pushes on the square indentation in the iron door again.

Khalid tucks another page behind the stack of printed papers. "No matter how many times you do that, it's not going to give."

The indentation suddenly slides up and Rosita's hands fall forward through the opening and land on the cement outside. She jerks her hands inside and crawls backward quickly on her hands and knees. Khalid's chair scrapes on the cement floor as he stands and seizes the scissors.

[*]

"Do you _have_ to go?" Henry asks Carol when she stops by his trailer at the first hint of sunrise to tell him what's going on. Sleep dust crusts his eyes.

"I think I do."

"Then let me come with you!"

"No, Henry, sweetie. You need to stay here. Tend to your studies. Train with your staff. This is – "

"- A job for grownups," he interrupts bitterly. "I'm not a little boy anymore."

"No, you're not," she agrees. "Which is why you should be able to understand why you need to stay here."

Henry sighs and nods. "I'm just…I'm worried about you, Carol. About you coming back."

"I'm coming back," she assures him. "I always come back, don't I?"

He smiles weakly. "You're invincible."

She hugs him. "Be good. Listen to your elders."

"Sure," he says with a smirk.

[*]

Rosita lowers herself to her stomach and tries to peer through the open square to see who is on the other side, but she can make out only black boots and tan pant legs.

Some kind of spring-like grabber tool comes through the door grasping a piece of paper in its red plastic claw. The claw opens and the paper flutters to the ground. The tool is retracted and the iron doggie door slides shut again.

"Hello?" Khalid calls. "Who are you? What do you want with us?" But there's only silence.

Rosita stands with the paper in her hand. Khalid reads over her shoulder.

 _Dear Watchers,_

 _Please put your soiled clothes and towels through the hole in the door when I open it again. If you don't, you'll be displeased by the way your apartment smells._

 _I hope you are enlightened by the manuscript I left for your reading pleasure._

 _Enjoy your stay._

 _Sincerely,_

 _The Prophet_

[*]

Daryl waits for Carol a few yards from Henry's trailer, at the edge of the worn blacktop, a pack on one shoulder and his crossbow on the other. He knows he was drunk last night, and he knows he said some things, but what he doesn't know is how pissed off she might be at him. He can't remember how she reacted. When he woke up, she was already dressed and packed and about to head out the door, and she didn't say anything other than _Hurry up, get ready, and meet by Henry's_.

Carol walks across the blacktop now to join him, and he shifts his pack nervously.

"How's your head?" she asks.

"Hurts," he admits. Might as well get this over with. "Did I say dumbass stuff last night?"

"I think maybe you just said some things you needed to say. And I think maybe there's some things I need to say to you, too." _Oh shit._ His heart sinks like a stone into his gut. What if she's breaking it off? "Even if I have to say them sober." Carol steps closer to him and puts a hand on his hip.

Daryl looks down at the ground.

"I'm sorry, too. You were hurt when I left Alexandria. And you were hurt when I chose the Kingdom over the Hilltop."

A line jumps in Daryl's jaw. The pain of her leaving rises up, but it's pushed back down by relief that she doesn't seem upset with him.

"And I know it probably doesn't help that I didn't intend to hurt you."

His eyes flick up for a moment, and then down again.

"Both were things I had to do. At first it was for me…and then it was for Henry, but even when it was for Henry…I think it was still for me. I needed…" She shakes her head. "I don't know. I needed to make a name for myself, maybe, with people who didn't know me when I was someone else. And with people I've never been banished from. We've both been hurt, you and I. But maybe it's time for both of us to let go of those hurts. To let go and know that whatever happens from here on out, whether we're together or we're temporarily apart and waiting to come together again - we've always got each other."

Daryl gnaws on his bottom lip, which quivers slightly. Love and relief, pain and hope somersault in a confused jumble through his mind.

"Right?" she asks hopefully.

"Yeah," he breaths out. "Yeah. 'S right." He kisses her clumsily, and then turns and starts walking toward the gate.

Carol, smiling, falls in step beside him, a pack on her back and her AR-15 slung over her right shoulder. When they get to the gate, they both look up at Dianne on the watch platform.

"You're not at least taking bicycles?" Dianne asks.

"Easier to track on foot," Daryl replies. "Gonna have to look at the ground all the damn time."

Dianne comes down from the ladder, reaches over shoulder and into her quiver, and pulls out a handful of homemade arrows. "These are the best and sharpest ones I made for my crossbow." She hands them to him. "Be careful out there."

Surprised by the gesture, Daryl takes the arrows and mutters his thanks.

Dianne is unlatching the gate for them when Cassandra comes running up. Daryl does not want to deal with that woman's advances, so he steps behind Carol as a shield. But Cassandra's not there to hit on him. She's frantic. "I heard Khalid didn't come back?"

"No, we're going to track him now," Carol tells her.

"Avonaco's out there. He left yesterday afternoon!"

"I know," Carol replies.

"Do you think they've got him now? Those Temple people? That they've captured my husband?"

"I don't think so," Carol reassures her. "But we'll find Avonaco."

[*]

After they put their stinking clothes and towels through the opening and the iron slides shut again, Rosita throws herself against the door, pounds and yells, and demands their captor show himself.

Eventually, Khalid pulls her away and quiets her down. "It's useless," he says. "He'll show himself when he shows himself. And maybe we shouldn't be in a hurry to deal with him."

Overwhelmed by the horrible thought of remaining captive forever in this windowless room, Rosita throws herself on the air mattress, back down, and stares up at the dirty, once-white, stucco ceiling. Eventually, she closes her eyes.

[*]

Daryl stops, squats, and touches the earth. He rubs the mud between his fingertips and stands. "'S Avocado's print, probably," he tells Carol. "What size shoe does he wear?"

"Why would I know that? And I think you mean Avonaco."

"Assume it's his. Fresh enough. Less n' a day. Goin' the right way. No sign of anyone comin' _back_ this way, not so far." He shifts his pack on his shoulder and squints down the roadway. "Wanna track him first? Send 'em back?"

"Send him home to Casandra, you mean?" Carol asks. "She seemed worried sick. Maybe this will finally give her the kick in the ass she needs to stop taking him for granted."

"Meant send 'em home 'fore he gets caught," Daryl mutters. "Send him home so the grown-ups can handle this shit."

Carol chuckles. "I know you don't like Avonaco, but he's actually a good scout. He may be harder to track than you imagine."

"Found his print, didn't I?" Daryl asks.

Carol looks down at the earth. "You sure did. But I doubt he's being careful yet. We're still six miles from the Temple."

Daryl walks on, examining the ground, and Carol follows.

[*]

Rosita awakens, sits up, and rubs her eyes. Khalid's is sitting at the table reading. "How long was I asleep?"

"Three hours, I think," he says.

"Then why are you in the same place in that manuscript?"

"It's my second time through." He underlines something in the text and writes a note on a sheet of paper.

Rosita comes over and sits in the chair across from him. "So, professor, what's your analysis?"

Khalid sets down his pencil. "The manuscript is dated 1968. That's why it's typed on a manual typewriter instead of a computer – the original, anyway. This is, as you noted, a photocopy."

"So he must be older than us."

"I don't think he wrote it in 1968. I think he wrote it right at the start of the Outbreak on an old typewriter and then backdated it. He claims God gave him a vision to prepare the Temple so that it could withstand _the coming Scourge_ and serve as a haven for _God's chosen people_. I think the Mormon leadership did prepare the Temple to survive a prolonged natural disaster, just not specifically this disaster. And somehow he knew that."

"Because he was in the leadership?" Rosita asks.

"Or he was one of the engineers who helped make it self-sufficient. Anyway, he prophecies _the Scourge_ and then says the chosen are immune from it. It is their duty to..." He flips to a page and reads, " _be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. If you follow the law of the Prophet,_ _your offspring shall be free from the Scourge and their descendants shall inherit the earth."_

"But none of us is immune," she says.

"Which is why I think he wrote it early on in the Outbreak, before he discovered that no one was immune."

"But they must have seen one of their own die and turn by now," Rosita reasons. "They must know it isn't true."

"The text says to close the gates permanently in _the six month of the first year of the Scourge_."

"You mean they haven't left that Temple in over four years?" Rosita asks.

"I don't think so. We never saw a graveyard on those grounds. The oldest among them looked to be late fifties, maybe. They're a young people. Healthy. Well fed. Maybe they've never lost anyone at all."

"But eventually they will."

"I think the Prophet anticipates that. There are hand revisions to the text in footnotes. I suspect he passes them on in oral teaching through the radio. One of those revisions contains a ceremonial burial process that involved puncturing the brain. But it also says that if a dead person in the community of the chosen _does_ transform into a _rotting man beast_ , he was not one of the chosen after all, but a _pretender_ all along."

"A _pretender_?" Rosita asks.

" _Pretenders_ only pretend to believe. _Doubters_ question the Revelation but have not yet fully abandoned it and can still be enlightened. A _dversaries_ have fully abandoned the Revelation and actively seek to discourage the chosen from following it in order to prevent them from repopulating the earth."

"What happens to pretenders and doubters and adversaries?" Rosita asks.

" _He who doubts the Revelation can be enlightened,"_ Khalid reads, " _if he opens his heart to the teachings of the Prophet._ The text says that if someone expresses doubts, the community can turn him over to the Prophet. The prophet will _seek to enlighten_ him for five months, and then rule as to his status: pretender, adversary, or believer. If he's deemed to be a believer, he can re-enter the community of the chosen. If he's deemed to be a pretender or an adversary, he'll be permanently banished."

"How do they turn over a doubter if the gates are never opened?"

"That I don't know," Khalid admits. "Maybe the Prophet _is_ in the Temple. Maybe we are too. Maybe be he thinks we're doubters. Maybe he's enlightening us."

"You think he lives in the basement and never shows himself and talks to them through that radio, like the wonderful Wizard of Oz?"

Khalid shrugs. "Maybe."

"Then how did the Prophet get out of the Temple to get us? And how did he get us back in?"

"That's the million dollar question."

"What else is in that book?" Rosita asks.

"There's a section on ritual law. The apple thing – my guess was correct. She was designating the father of her child. Even the bird hunting ritual we saw is detailed in this manuscript."

"Is there marriage law?"

"Oh yes," he says. He flips through some pages and begins reading:

 _Chosen men who have survived the Scourge, the Lord your God, through the Prophet, commands you – if you be unmarried, take your brother's widow as your wife. If you have no widowed sister-in-law, take your first cousin's widow as your wife. If you be already married, then let your wife take your unmarried brothers and male first cousins unto her also. Do not be jealous of your wife's love, as are the adversaries, who insist on keeping their wives only unto themselves._ _Chosen women, welcome your husband's brothers and male first cousins as your husbands. If you be a youth, then take a husband by your eighteenth year, and -_

"Tell me about the sex laws," Rosita interrupts.

"Women are commanded to have sex a minimum of two times a week with all of their husbands."

"All at once?" Rosita asks, wide-eyed.

"No. I mean with _each_ of their husbands. One at a time. Privately. In a _Sowing Chamber_."

"In a what?"

"They have sex rooms, I gather, somewhere in the Temple. Sowing," Khalid explains, "like sowing seeds. Not sewing clothes."

"It's not like an S&M room is it?"

"I didn't get that impression. It's just they aren't supposed to have sex in their own rooms. Weaned children share a room with their designated father. Unweaned children share a room with their mothers. And the sex goes on somewhere else."

Rosita shakes her head. "So if she's got six husbands, she's expected to have sex at least twelve times a week?"

"Well, she's limited by law to a maximum of five husbands."

"Oh, lucky her."

"No sex during menstruation," Khalid continues. "No sex when she's pregnant, or for four months after she gives birth. But during that time she _is_ supposed to give each of her husband's one blow job a week."

"Are you serious?"

"The author doesn't call it a blow job. He calls it _savoring the fruit_ and _absorbing the stream_ in order to _rotate the seed_. But I read between the lines."

"This is _insane_. And they just go along with it?"

"Well, think about it," Khalid says. "The world as we know it ends. People who are probably already religious in some way find a text, or are given a text, that appears to predict the collapse accurately. They find, or are led to, a Temple that is safe from walkers and rapists and thieves and murderers, equipped with water and food and the means to grow more. They know everyone is dead or dying outside the gates, and they don't want to be out there. So they _believe_. They _believe_ the Revelation."

"And the Prophet?" Rosita asks. "What does he stand to gain by inventing it all?"

"Adulation? Respect? Honor? His brother's wife, whom he's always secretly coveted? Or, who knows – maybe he actually believes in his own revelation."

Rosita jumps in her seat as the iron doggie door slides open again and the red plastic claw of the grabber comes through to drop Rosita's clean, dry, folded clothes on the floor. The claw retracts, and then enters again with Khalid's clothes. Rosita gets down on her stomach, at a distance, and peers through the opening, but again sees only black boots and tan pants.

The door cover slides closed with a metallic rasp.


	50. Chapter 50

Daryl squats at the edge of the forest. His boots crunching against the dusty gravel, he stands and walks back along the highway's shoulder while studying the ground intently. Then he turns again and disappears into the forest. Carol considers following him in, but the last three times she did, he just turned around again, so instead she stands on the shoulder and sips from her canteen. She looks in the far distance, where the alabaster towers of the old Mormon Temple, and their golden spikes, rise over the evergreen trees.

She puts away the canteen and lifts her binoculars. She can see the golden spikes more clearly now, and the angel Moroni, which appears to be wrapped with black vines, but she can't make out much and eventually lowers the binoculars.

Sure enough, Daryl's back out in five minutes. "Lost Avocado's trail," he mutters.

"You're finally willing to admit that?"

"Think he started bein' more careful once he went in the woods here."

"Probably because we're within a mile and a half of the Temple now," she says.

"'S go in the woods, stay hidden. Hike closer. See if I can pick up his trail again."

Carol follows him into the woods.

[*]

"We're going to have to have sex eventually," Khalid insists as he balances a pencil by its tip on his fingertip. He's sitting in one chair with his feet up on the other chair for a footstool. "If only to kill the boredom." The pencil topples over and rolls on the ground.

"No way, no how. He's probably watching us. Recording us." Rosita's been pacing the room, scouring the cinderblock wall for holes and looking for any way they might be being watched or listened to. She hasn't found anything suspicious. Except…there is a vent in the bathroom ceiling. "I'm covering that vent."

She goes into the bathroom, balances on the rim of the stainless steel toilet, and stretches up on her tiptoes to lace a washcloth between the slats to block any optics or eyes that might be behind it. She comes back out into the main room, shutting the bathroom door behind her. "No conversations in the bathroom," she tells him.

"What a shame," Khalid says dryly. "I had hoped to use it as a parlor."

[*]

Daryl stops suddenly in the woods and throws his arm out in a signal to stop. Carol freezes. He looks straight down at something on the ground, something she can't see, and then his crossbow is in his hands before Carol even notices him moving. She unshoulders and readies her AR-15.

A twig snaps behind them, and they turn at the sound, pointing their weapons, but hear only a voice – "Carol? Would you mind not shooting me when I step out?"

Carol breathes a sigh of relief and lowers her gun. Daryl doesn't budge, however.

"Come on out, Avonaco," Carol says, and then when the long-haired, dark eyed man prowls out from behind a tree, with his knife and handgun holstered on his hip and a longbow on his shoulder, and nothing pointed at either of them, Daryl finally does lower his crossbow.

"What are you doing here?" Avonaco asks.

Carol tells him. "Have you seen any sign of Khalid or Rosita?"

"Yes, in the woods at the top of the nearby hill."

Carol's eyes brighten. "You found them?"

"No. I went up the hill to scout. It's a spot I discovered last time I was here. I told Khalid about it. You can see the Temple roof from there in one section and a bridge in another. So I went back yesterday. In the woods off the hill, I found the remnants of a camp – a jangle wire and dead walkers nearby. A stone circle to enclose a fire. No gear. It had been cleared out. I just assumed Khalid already went home because he knew I was coming to relieve him."

"Any sign there was a second in that camp?" Daryl asks.

"I don't know. I wasn't looking for signs. I just assumed it was Khalid's camp."

"And now you're down here?" Carol asks.

"Nothing happened yesterday. Only some gardening on the roof. I thought it was time I try to get closer to the Temple on ground level."

"'N did ya?" Daryl asks.

Avonaco nods. "There's woods across from the fence. I stayed covered in there, hiked the perimeter, found only one gate. It looks like it hasn't been opened in years. It's chained and rusted and the grass is overgrown around it. If Khalid and Rosita are in the Temple, I can't imagine how they got in. And if the Temple people came out and took them…" Avonaco shakes his head. "I can't imagine how they got out."

"So maybe they weren't captured," Carol speculates. "And something else happened to them. Did you see any sign of them _near_ the Temple?"

"No, but I wasn't looking for any signs either. I didn't know Khalid hadn't come back home."

"Go back to the Kingdom," Carol tells him. "Let them know you're safe. Cassandra's worried sick about you."

"I doubt that," Avonaco says. "I'm sure she already found some way to amuse herself last night while I was gone."

"Well, she _seemed_ worried," Carol says. "And Ezekiel should know you haven't been captured. Report what you've seen, and tell him Daryl and I will continue to try to find them."

Avonaco looks suspiciously at Daryl and then back to Carol. "No offense, Carol, but you aren't the king. My orders were to remain and watch three days, and then return."

"I'm not the king, but I'm a member of the Council. And the Council ruled to send us here to track Khalid and Rosita."

"And did it rule to send me back?" he asks.

"We didn't discuss that. But I really do think it would be a relief to a lot of people to know that you're well and what you've found so far. To Cassandra, particularly."

Avonaco looks at her skeptically. He rubs his chin. "Be careful," he tells her. "Stay away from the dirt road around the fence and remain in the trees."

"Yeah, we done this sort of thing before," Daryl mutters. "Ain't 'zactly virgins."

Avonaco ignores him.

"We will," Carol assures him.

Avonaco nods to her and then vanishes between the trees in the other direction.

As Carol follows Daryl on deeper into the woods, he asks, "He ain't _really_ an Indian, is he? Cheyenne weren't nowhere near Virginia."

"I don't know. He said he was from Montana originally, but he moved to D.C. to become a lobbyist."

"A lobbyist?"

Carol shrugs. "That's what he said. No one ever guesses I was a housewife."

Daryl falls silent and stays silent until they reach the tree line outside the dirt road that circles the fence on the outskirts of the Temple grounds. "Should we walk the perimeter?" Carol whispers. "Look for signs?"

"Already found a trail." Daryl walks left with his eyes on the forest floor.

"Isn't it probably Avonaco's?"

"Nah. Ain't a man's. 'S a woman's. Could be Rosita's."

Wings of hope flutter in Carol's chest. Gripping her rifle tightly, and darting her eyes in all directions, she follows.

[*]

"S," says Rosita as she looks at what Khalid has written on the paper:

_ _ _ A_ E _ E A _ T _ _ _ _

"Sorry, no." He draws a leg on the hangman, which already has a head, a body, and two arms.

"No S. No N. No P. No M. I don't think this can be a real phrase."

"It's a real phrase," he insists.

"Fine. An R."

He fill in and R.

_ _ _ ARE _ EA_T_ _ _ _

"O."

_O_ ARE _EA_T_ _ _ _

"U?"

_OU ARE _EAUT_ _ U _

"You are….something e-ow-t-oo?"

He laughs. "Guess another letter."

"Fine! Y!"

YOU ARE _EAUT_ _ U _

Rosita throws up a hand. "L maybe?"

YOU ARE _ EAUT _ _ UL

"This is not a real phrase!" she insists.

"I think it's obvious what the phrase is at this point. It's as if you've never played hangman before."

The iron indentation slides up on the door, and the red claw comes through the opening to deposit a note before retracting. Rosita scurries to the ground and tries a third time to see their captor, but again it's only black boots and tan pant legs.

Khalid picks up the paper. "It's a questionnaire," he says as he sits down at the table. "We're supposed to fill it out."

"Seriously?"

Khalid picks up a pencil.

"And you're just going to?" She pulls a chair out next to him and sits down.

"Might as well," he says.

She looks at the paper and sees that question one asks: "Are you two watchers married?"

Khalid writes, _Yes._

"What the hell?" Rosita asks.

Khalid puts a finger to his lips, leans close, and whispers, "If we're married, the Revelation says I can't put away my wife. I only have to let you marry my brothers and male cousins. And I have none. You won't have to choose a husband."

"Are you serious?" Rosita hisses back. "You think we're going to settle here?"

Khalid's lips almost touch her ears as he whispers, "I think we may be forced to, for a time _,_ until we can escape _._ "

Rosita turns her mouth to his ear. _"_ So we play along?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

Rosita shakes her head.

The next question asks, "What is your religious background?" Khalid looks at Rosita, at the paper, and then writes, _We don't have a religion, but we are both_ s _eekers_.

The next question is, "Where did you come from? Do you have a community? Where is it?"

He writes, _Our community was near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but it was entirely destroyed by fire._ _We are the last two survivors. We came this way seeking a new community._

Good idea, Rosita thinks.

Question 4 : "Have you read the Revelation?"

Khalid writes _Yes_. _Twice._

Question 5: "Do you wish to know more?"

Khalid looks at Rosita, who half holds her breath as he turns his eyes back to the paper and writes: _Yes._

[*]

Daryl's travelled half way around the perimeter of the Temple with Carol quietly at his side. They've passed the gate Avocado told them about and observed it from a distance for a few minutes. Then they moved on.

"It looks like there's more tracks," Carol says.

He's pleased she noticed the signs. "Walkers," he replies. His finger inches closer to the trigger of his crossbow. They follow the signs and come across a slain walker body. Then another. Then another, until they find themselves at the spot where the trees are bare _inside_ the fence line. The Temple grounds are visible, which means the two of them might be visible to anyone who's watching with binoculars, so they bury themselves deeper in the woods. That's when they find a lot more walker bodies.

"Someone fought their way back through the woods here," Carol says. "Or tried to." Whoever it was might be in several walkers' stomachs by now.

Daryl squats down, picks up a stick, and uses it to poke around a dead walker's head. "Used a knife." He moves a few feet over to another fallen body and examines it, too, poking the point of his stick into its head. The decaying flesh gives. He pulls out the stick and looks at the stick curiously. " _One_ of 'em used a knife," he clarifies. "But whoever killed this one used…dunno. Somethin' real thin. A metal potato skewer?"

He's not surprised Carol laughs when he says it. They've all used some interesting in-a-pinch weapons in their time, but the idea of someone wandering through the woods with a potato skewer is absurd. "Nah, probably not," he agrees. He stands. "Somethin' thin though."

Carol's smile vanishes instantly. "A rapier, maybe?" .

Daryl's lips press into a grim line. "Mhm. Yeah. Makes sense." A vision of Khalid and Rosita's gnawed-over bodies flashes through his mind. It's clear from Carol's expression that she's having the same thought.

Silently, they follow the trail of bodies deeper into the woods.


	51. Chapter 51

Rosita and Khalid returned their questionnaire what _feels_ like an hour ago. They've shared a freeze-dried meal of mac n' cheese, and now they're playing hangman again. "An O," she says.

Khalid uses his pencil to fills in the blanks:

I _ O_ E _ O_

"An R."

Khalid draws the final leg on her hang man.

"Seriously? No T, No S, No M, No N, no R, _none_ of the regular consonants? No A either? You've made up this phrase."

"It's a real phrase, I assure you."

"Yeah? Then what is it?"

"I'm sorry, but you've been hanged. I can't reveal the phrase once you've been hanged. You have to solve it."

"I _swear_ you're cheating."

Khalid chuckles.

The metal square slides open, the claw comes through, and a manila folder is deposited on the floor. Rosita doesn't bother to try to peek at their captor this time. She just languidly retrieves the folder and opens it. She sighs. "Lucky us. Another manuscript." It, too, looks like it was typewritten on a manual typewriter and then photocopied. This one is titled _Entering the Final Covenant: On the Assimilation of New Members Into the Community of the Chosen._

Rosita drops the manuscript on the table. "Happy Reading."

"Actually, I'm finally tired. Why don't you read this one? I think I'm going to have a nap. Or a night's sleep. Depending on what time it is." Khalid walks over to the air mattress and crawls beneath the blanket. "Unless you want to join me for a little entertainment, of course."

Rosita rolls her eyes, sits down in the chair he's vacated, and opens the manila folder.

[*]

Daryl looks down the embankment at the walker bodies on the two shores and in the creek bed.

Carol returns from pacing the edge. "I think most of these have been shot," she says.

"Mhmhm," Daryl agrees.

"Maybe nearer the fence Rosita was trying not to fire so as not to attract the attention of the Temple, but when they got this far into the woods, with this many after them, she gave up and opened fire."

"Could be," Daryl agrees. "Cover me." He shoulders his bow and begins to climb down the embankment using roots. Carol stays up top, rifle readied, eyes scouring the scene while Daryl studies the embankment, bends and touches the shore, prowls among the walker bodies, carefully examines the sign, and collects some shell casings, which he now jostles in the palm of his hand.

"What are you thinking?" Carol asks finally.

"Thinkin' these walkers weren't all killed at the same time. Two people – 'Sita 'n Khalid, probably, outran 'em, left 'em clawin' at that embankment. 'N then someone else finished 'em off later."

"Why do you say that?"

"Marks on the bank. Walkers dug in real good with their hands for a long while. 'N whoever killed 'em used an M60, looks like." He holds one of the shell casings between two fingers, upward, toward Carol. "7.62 by 51 mimilimeter."

"But didn't Rosita use an AR-10? And can't that use the same caliber?"

"Lots do. Hers don't. Hers is chambered for .260. 'Sides – 'Sita ain't inaccurate. _Way_ more spent brass 'n walkers." He looks at the shell casings that have floated and gathered like sea shells along the shore. "'S like she was usin' a gun too big for 'er."

"For _her_?" Carol asks.

"The trail we followed from the other side of the Temple? Ain't 'Sitas. Belongs to whoever killed these walkers later." He walks along the opposite shore for a while, up a two-step embankment on the other side, and around the trees opposite. He looks at one tree, touches the bark, and then peels some off.

Meanwhile, Carol, satisfied there's no one around, shoulders her rifle, scurries down the embankment, splashes through the creek, and joins him. "What do you see?" she asks as she swings her AR-15 back into her hands.

He points up.

Her eyes follow his finger. "What should I be seeing?"

"The black stuff."

She cranes her neck until she sees it – some kind of gear in the tree. "That's for a spring loaded net trap!" There's no net on it currently, though.

"Yep. Big un, too. People size."

"They were captured?" Carol's brow furrows in confusion.

"Yeah, don't make sense. If they fled the other way, how'd they get captured on this side? Less 'n they came back later for some reason." He touches the raw trunk of the tree where he's peeled off the bark. "Somethin' sharp was stuck 'n here. Sharp n' thin. Probably not a potato skewer."

"Khalid's rapier? Do you think they came back for it later when they though the walkers might have moved on?"

"Maybe. But hell would his rapier be in a tree for?"

"Bait," Carol suggests, pointing up at the gear.

Daryl nods. "Yeah. He must of lost it somehow when they's fleein'. She took it 'n put it in this tree, and when he went to grab it….Woosh."

He walks past the tree and disturbs the earth with his boot. "Net got dragged this way. 'S heavy. Both of 'em in it."

"A woman dragged two people all by herself?"

"Looks like. Dragged 'em real damn slow. Wasn't easy for 'er." He walks along the sign. "She's strugglin', movin' backward, diggin' in her boots for leverage."

"They must have been knocked out cold," Carol says. "Or drugged with chloroform or something."

"Or both."

"Well, lead on," Carol says. "Show me where she took them."

Daryl nods and, after crouching down a moment, rises and walks on.

[*]

Rosita turns a page shakily. Khalid said that _doubters_ who were judged to be _pretenders_ or _adversaries_ were permanently banished, but this document amends that. _Entering the Final Covenant_ says adversaries must be executed:

 _The Lord Your God, who sends his continued revelations through His Holy Spirit to the Prophet Your Guide and Protector, says unto you: slay the adversary, before he slays you. Slay the adversary, before he leads you permanently astray. A pretender is like a tame dog in sheep's clothing, who if you send him into the wilderness will not return, but an adversary is like a ravenous wolf, who if banished grows yet hungrier and more rabid. An adversary will in time seek to war with you and destroy the holy Temple of the Lord your God. Again I say unto you – slay him, before he slays you, or, still worse, leads you on the path of darkness, where there is not the protection of the Prophet._

Rosita finishes the text, which is much shorter than the _Revelation._ Then she crawls under the blanket with Khalid who stirs awake. "No sex," she says. "I just want you to hold me."

He blinks skeptically. " _Hold_ you?"

"Yes."

Really, she needs to talk to him, close by, so she can keep her voice low, in case the Prophet is listening. But when Khalid shifts fully onto his back on the mattress and pats his chest, Rosita lays her head on it. He wraps both arms around her. She lies there for a while, just listening to the steady, reassuring rhythm of his heart.

Finally, she raises her head to speak quietly. "I read the manuscript. You're right. He's _enlightening us_. We're supposed to study the Revelation and submit any questions we have through the door. He'll keep us together for ten weeks, and then separate us for eight weeks for a time of _isolated reflection_. After that, there will be a two-week _examination_ , though it's not really clear to me what that entails. At the end of the examination, he'll decide if we're believers, adversaries, or pretenders. If he decides we're believers, we take an oath of obedience and go through a bunch of rituals to enter the community of the chosen. If he decides we're pretenders, we're given the mark of the banished on our foreheads, dropped outside the Temple grounds, and told never to return. If he decides we're adversaries, though… well, then it's execution." She bends her head, kisses his ear, and whispers, "We have to pretend to believe."

Khalid turns his head, kisses her earlobe, and whispers back. "I can be convincing, but can you?"

She draws back. "What's that mean?" she asks, not so quietly now.

He smiles, a little affectionately, a little fearfully. "Rosita, my darling, you wear your disdain across your face like a neon sign."

[*]

Daryl comes to an abrupt stop. He moves one foot forward on the earth and pushes down with his toe. Then he squats, clears some fallen pine needles and leaves with his hand, and runs his fingertip around something.

"Is that a _manhole_?" Carol asks.

"Mhmhm. Damn good camouflage. She took 'em down there. Must be a tunnel."

"How did she open it, do you think?" Carol asks. There's no handle on the outside.

"From the inside, then she left it open 'til she went back down in. See if we can pry it open." He nods to her rifle.

Carol shakes her head. "My rifle's not a crowbar. I don't want to damage it. My barrel's too thick to use that way. Use one of those metal crossbow bolts Dianne gave you."

Daryl sighs, but takes one from his quiver. He works the point into the slot between the manhole in the earth and grunts and heaves until the bolt bends. He tries another, which survives his effort, and the manhole pries open.

Carol gets down on her haunches and slides it back halfway. An inside handle catches on the rim when the manhole is most of the way across. The handle must be for drawing it back in place. The opening is plenty large now for a person – or two – to fit in.

Daryl fishes in his pocket for his Maglite, squats, and turns it on.

"You have working batteries?"

"Mhmhm." Daryl says. "Hilltop found 'em in a root cellar. Still packaged. Cool enough down there they ain't been ruined."

He sweeps the beam of light down inside the tunnel. There's a ladder going down, maybe seven feet, to a clay-like dirt floor and a five-foot high tunnel disappearing in the direction of the temple.

"I'm going in first," Carol says. "You shut the manhole. Light my way."

[*]

Khalid is asleep again. Rosita listens to the rise and fall of his breath as her mind turns over the horror of spending five months in this place. Eight weeks of that will be in complete isolation, without even Khalid for company.

Daryl, Rosita thinks, came out of Negan's prison cell a different man. He regained himself in time, but he wasn't in there for anything like five months, either. They don't have to listen to the same song over and over, but they have to read the same text. She wonders how many people the Prophet has done this to. She wonders how many eventually just take those scissors for opening the meal bags and slit their own writs.

Rosita slides out of bed, goes over to the table, and takes a sheet of notebook paper from one of the folders. She begins to write herself a schedule, starting with a daily exercise plan. They'll need order and discipline and something to do if they're going to stay sane.

[*]

Daryl and Carol have to duck their heads and squat to crawl through the tunnel, but after they've gone about fifty feet, the tunnel grows higher and they reach a wider section where they can stand.

The beam of Daryl's flashlight sweeps over wheel tracks in the dirt. "She must have rolled 'em once she got to this point," Daryl says. "On some kind of cart she kept there." He shines the beam toward an alcove, over an area where a rectangle of slightly different color dirt rests. "See the pock marks?"

Carol does – the indentation of four wheels, one outside each corner of the rectangle. There's also a set of metal shelves in the alcove with boxes of ammunition - the same caliber they found in the creek - and cloths and a bottle. "I think this is chloroform."

"She drugged 'em, once she got 'em in here. To keep 'em out." He puts his maglite between his teeth and swings his pack off his shoulder. He unzips it and begins to shovel the ammo boxes inside.

"Don't," Carol says. "Not yet. In case she's out and comes back in this way, we don't want her to suspect someone's found her lair."

Daryl dutifully takes the ammo boxes out and stacks them neatly on the shelf again. Carol slips the maglite out from between his teeth. "Let's see where the wheel tracks go."

As Daryl follows, Carol lights the way.


	52. Chapter 52

The beam sweeps straight down one tunnel, and right down another. "A fork in the road," Carol declares.

"Roll tracks went this way."

The tunnels are higher here, six feet, and neither has to stoop, though Daryl's head is close to the ceiling. The tunnel dead ends against a locked, iron door with a keyhole. They yank on the handle, but it doesn't budge. Carol tries to peer through the keyhole, but sees only darkness. She sighs. "There's no way through that without the key. Or dynamite."

"Got any?" Daryl asks.

"Sorry, I'm fresh out," she says sarcastically, but then muses, "I suppose we could go back to the Kingdom and get some gunpowder and make some."

"Might need to. Could be more tunnels down there. Might be where she took 'em."

Carol shakes her head. "I don't get it. We followed her trail through the woods on the _other side_ of the Temple. But she brought them down a manhole near the creek. Why were her tracks way over there?"

"Might be more 'n one way in and out."

"Let's go look down those other tunnels."

They creep through the dark tunnel, shoulder to shoulder, with only the beam of light to lead them.

[*]

The iron square slides up. The claw creeps its way through the opening in the door. Rosita has an almost overbearing urge to seize the claw and yank it. Maybe the Prophet will open the door if his precious toy is stripped from him. But she doesn't. Instead, she picks up the paper that flutters to the floor.

It's another questionnaire.

1\. Why were you watching my people?

2\. How many people have you killed?

3\. Why did you kill them?

4\. What was the longest time you remained in one camp?

5\. How did you manage to get your weapons and backpacks out of the fire, if your last camp really burned up?

6\. How could you be the only two who escaped?

The line of inquiry makes Rosita nervous. It's as if the Prophet suspects – or has already decided – that they are _adversaries_.

[*]

Carol and Daryl have passed two more offshoots of the tunnel but are waiting to see where the current one leads before exploring those. It leads to a dead end.

Carol sweeps the beam of the flashlight up over the iron rungs of a ladder. The manhole above is latched shut with a slide lock.

"I'll go." Daryl sheds his pack in the tunnel but keeps his crossbow on his shoulder.

Carol lights his way as he scales the ladder and slides the latch free. Daryl cautiously pushes the manhole open and peeks through. He looks down. "Stay down here," he orders. "Get out the other way if'n I don't come back."

Like she's going to do that.

He crawls out the manhole. It's a long, long three minutes before he comes back down. He slides the manhole shut and climbs down the ladder.

"What's up there?" Carol asks.

"Came out in a clearin' in the trees, _inside_ the fence, on the backside of the Temple. 'S a weird thing up there."

"What kind of weird thing?" Carols asks with trepidation.

"Big wooden chair, with metal wrists cuffs and ankle cuffs. Like maybe they put people in it. Say's _DOUBTER_ 'cross the top of the chair, painted 'n big black letters."

"Do you think they put people in the chair to punish them? Like people used to do with the stocks?"

"Maybe. Manhole's camouflaged. Just like the other one. Dunno I'd of noticed it if I weren't comin' out it."

" _Inside_ the fence?" Carol looks back down the tunnel. "So that's not how she got _beyond_ the fence on the other side. Let's check out that offshoot a ways back."

They do, turning down another tunnel, hiking in, and coming out at another manhole, this time just inside the tree line on the _outside_ of the fence. It's not far from where Daryl initially picked up the trail that they followed to the creek.

They go back down into the tunnel again, find their way back in the hazy light of the flashlight, swing left, trek in, and take yet another offshoot. "Why do you think these tunnels were built in the first place?" Carol asks.

"Dunno. Bunker? 'N case of nuclear attack?" He stops suddenly. She runs into him, and he pushes himself back by his foot, pushing her back, too.

"Ouch!" Carol rubs her nose where his crossbow smacked her.

"Sorry," he mutters. "'S a drop off. Almost fell down."

Carol inches forward and shines the flashlight below. "Another tunnel's down there."

They climb one by one cautiously down the ladder, and soon they're in a cement rather than a dirt tunnel and the walls are eight feet high. The beam of the flashlight hits a light switch. Carol swings the beam away from the switch, and they walk until they find another ladder. This time there's not a circular manhole at the top, but more of a square, and when Carol pushes against it, it feels more like wood than metal.

The door opens by a hinge, and they climb out onto some kind of stage and blink in the sudden flood of light. They look in awe at the stunningly white altar and pews, the high ceilings, and the glass chandelier that glows with electricity. "How can they have electricity?" Carol asks.

A door they cannot see but can only hear creaks open somewhere at the far end of the sanctuary. There's no time to get back down in that hatch, so Daryl slams it shut, and they both duck quickly under the white cloth that drapes the altar.

They sit cramped beneath the table as the door swings shut with a thwap. Footsteps approach.

Carol swallows and double checks that her safety is off her rifle.

The footsteps grow closer. It sounds like more than one person, though how many, Carol can't guess. The feet move up the stairs to the altar. _Thump thump._ _Thump thump._ _Thump thump._ And again _Thump thump._ _Thump thump._ _Thump thump._ And again. _Thump thump._ _Thump thump._ _Thump thump._

 _Three,_ Carol thinks. Three on two, but she and Daryl are well armed and have the element of surprise. She looks over at Daryl, who shakes his head no. They aren't here to engage the Temple people, but to find Khalid and Rosita, and their best chance of doing that is to lay low until they know more. Who knows what they might be taking on if they take on the Temple.

Daryl's eyes flit down and he nods. Carol follows his gaze and sees the tips of boots beneath the edge of the cloth against the stage: three pairs of black boots, caked in dirt.

On the table above them, something clunks down. And then something else.

"Oh Lord our God," comes a man's voice, "we bring to your Prophet this offering, the first fruits of our garden, in gratitude for our many blessings. For the bounty of your gardens, which bloom with riches. For the bounty of your fountain, which teems with fish. For the bounty of your sky, which you have filled with birds to be our meat and our sustenance. And we thank you for the bounty of the womb of our wife, in which one of our seeds has taken root."

Carol raises an eyebrow. Daryl meets her eyes with widened eyes of his own.

"In the holy name of the Prophet, our Guide and Protector, we pray. Amen."

"Amen."

"Amen."

A second voice speaks now, deeper than the first: "And I thank you that I have been chosen to be named father of the seed that grows in our wife's womb. Oh Lord, let the Revelation lead me to fulfill my duties in honor and righteousness, that I may raise up immune offspring who will in turn raise up immune offspring, until my descendants number the new earth like the stars in the sky, and the Scourge is a forgotten memory. In the holy name of the Prophet, our Guide and our Protector, we do pray. Amen."

"Amen."

"Amen."

"Oh Lord our God," prays the third man, "we pray for your protection over our wife as she grows the chosen offspring in her womb. We pray for her safe delivery, and her continued fruitfulness. We pray for self-discipline and temperance as we continue the long fast from plowing the soil of her garden."

Carol is suddenly overcome with a schoolgirl urge to giggle and presses the palm of her hand against her mouth.

Daryl's eyes have widened even further.

"…And let us be fully satisfied with our wife's weekly savoring of the fruit and absorbing of the stream…"

Now Daryl's eyes narrow in confusion as Carol presses her palm even harder against her mouth.

"…that the seed may be rotated. For it is in the name of the holy Prophet, our Guide, and or Protector that we pray. Amen."

"Amen."

"Amen."

The first man prays again: "Continue your protection for the offspring of our wife, my son Jacob. Let him grow in the wisdom of your Revelation and avoid the path of temptation. Let him not become a doubter as did his sister Hannah."

Now the third man: "Yay, Lord. And enlighten the offspring of our wife, my daughter Hannah. Restore to her the faith she once cherished." His voice grows raw as he prays. "Through your holy Prophet, our Guide and Protector, bring her back onto the path of life. Return her to us, repentant and enlightened," and now his voice cracks – "and do not let her be cast away, into the wilderness among the rotting man beasts. And do not let her be possessed by demons that would make her an adversary to your chosen people. For that kind of spirit no longer comes out except by bullet or blade. In the name of the Prophet, our Guide and Protector, I do pray."

"Amen."

"Amen."

"Oh Lord our God, protect us against those who spy upon us," the second man prays.

Caorl's hand slides from her mouth and rests on her gun. Her finger inches toward the trigger.

"If they be adversaries let them be destroyed before they destroy your holy Temple. And if they be not adversaries, let them be enlightened. Thank you for the protection of your holy Prophet, who judges the intentions of those who would near our gates. The Prophet's ways are mysterious, his footsteps unknown, his comings and goings like the wind. He comes by night to take the offering. He comes by night to take the doubters. He comes shroud in cloaks of darkness, but leaves only light in his wake. He give us peace and plenty. He leads us to repopulate the land, to build the new earth, and to vanquish the Scourge. In the name of the Prophet, our Guide and Protector, we do pray. Amen."

"Amen."

"Amen."

Carol and Daryl wait in tense silence until the footsteps disappear and the distant door creaks closed. They crawl out from under the altar cloth cautiously, rise first on their knees to peer over the table, and then stand. Two small boxes of luscious fruit and vegetables rest on the table – apples, plumbs, tomatoes, soy beans, peanuts, and more.

They look for the trap door they came through, and it takes them a moment to find it because it looks so much like the surface of the stage – there's almost no line. But because they've closed it, they can't easily open it from the outside.

"Shit," Daryl mutters.

Carol gets down on her hands and knees and feels around for a crack. She takes out her hunting knife and wedges it into the crack until she's able to pry the door open, and then they both vanish inside, shutting it above them.

When they're down in the tunnels again, Carol clicks on the flashlight and asks, "Do you think this _Prophet_ has Khalid and Rosita?" Carol asks. "That the Prophet is _judging their intentions_?"

"Yeah. Think maybe so."

"And doing the same thing with some girl named Hannah?"

Daryl nods. "But ya hear how they said _him_? And _he_? They think the Prophet's a man."

"Because they've never seen her. Because she uses the tunnels and comes under the cloak of darkness."

"And goes like the wind," he mutters.

"She'll come for that offering tonight. We should be waiting for her."

Daryl nods. "Jump 'er, make 'er open that damn door and take us to Khalid and Rosita. But we still got a couple hours 'til nightfall."

"You want to go exploring, Pookie?"

He grins. "Used to do this in the storm sewers when I's a kid. Ya know, the ones for rain water. Always come out by a creek or some shit. Thought I was fuckin' Lewis n' Clark."

She smiles. "Well, I'll be your Sacagawea." She jerks head back down the tunnel, and walks off, with Daryl following.


	53. Chapter 53

Khalid, having awoken from his short nap, rubs his eyes and sits down at the table across from Rosita, who is reading the _Revelation_.

"You didn't tell me this book also borrows from the _Kama Sutra_ ," she says.

"Ah, you got to the section on acceptable sexual positions? Considerably fewer than in the _Kama Sutra_."

"Only seven in fact," she says.

"Seven is the number of perfection in Greek mythology," Khalid says. "Also, God created the earth in seven days."

"Six days," Rosita corrects him.

"Ah. Yes."

"If a man wrote this," Rosita asks, "why didn't he demand that the women give their husbands seven blowjobs a week while they're pregnant instead of just one a week? I mean, wouldn't _you_ have, if you were custom designing your own religion?"

"I'm not sure I would be that demanding a god," Khalid replies.

"What if a _woman_ wrote this?"

"If a woman wrote it, why would she insist the wives administer any blowjobs at all?"

"Hey, some women really like giving blowjobs," Rosita insists.

Khalid's eyebrow goes up.

Rosita shakes her head.

"I don't think we were knocked out by a _woman_ ," he says.

"Oh really? You don't think _I_ could knock _you_ out?" Rosita asks.

"Well, maybe you could knock _me_ out, but could you knock _yourself_ out?"

"Fair enough," Rosita concedes. "Although she – or he – snuck up on us from behind while we were caught up in a net. It wouldn't have taken much. A good blow with a crowbar. And then, if we were drugged…"

"What's that?" He nods to the sheet of paper on the table.

Rosita pushes the questionnaire over to him. "The Prophet delivered this while you were asleep. We've got some explaining to do, apparently."

[*]

In their explorations of the maze of tunnels, Daryl and Carol end up climbing up a ladder that exits in a crawlspace _inside_ the walls of the Temple. Artificial light seeps through vents high up in the walls. At first, they don't realize where they are, but then they come across a section where a square has been roughly cut out of the inner stone wall to reveal some kind of covering, and they can hear the voice of a woman saying, "Let's hurry, children, you're going to be late for class!" and the clattering of passing feet.

Carol touches the covering. It feel like canvas. She thinks maybe they're _behind_ a section of an oil painting. That's when she sees the black tape on the back of the canvass. She peels it off to reveal two holes, which she peers through. An empty, marble-floor hallway rests before her, and a golden banister that probably leads to a stairwell. Carol steps back to let Daryl have a look, and then she pushes the tape down over the canvass again. She assumes that when she presses the tape back on, it makes the painting look filled-in again. The eye holes must be cut out of the darkest spot.

They continue on through the crawlspace until they hear no sound again, and Carol whispers, "They may not see the Prophet, but I think the Prophet sees them."

They come to another cut-out I the wall and another canvas painting with more tape. After Carol peels the tape back, they each put one eye to a hole. They look out onto a marbled area with a small, circular blue pool and four alabaster stairs leading down into it.

"That their bath?" Daryl asks in a whisper.

"I think it's a baptismal pool," Carol replies. "But maybe they do use it for bathing now. They probably have some kind of ritual bathing."

A jet of water sprays underneath the surface of the pool. "'S gurglin'!"

"They have electricity _and_ running water," Carol whispers in awe. "Heat, too. Can you feel it?"

"Yeah." He steps back and unzips his leather jacket.

"This Temple must have been built to run off the grid somehow." Carol presses the tape back onto the painting and they continue through the walls until they find a third such cut out. It's like opening and Advent calendar, Carol thinks as she peels the tape back and puts her eyes to the peep holes.

Before her is a small waiting room with white chairs covered by lacy white cushions. She freezes and attempts to remain utterly silent because a man and a woman come in and sit down in two of the chairs not far from the painting.

The woman has an ankle-length floral dress on, while the man wears brown workpants held up by suspenders over a white shirt.

The woman turns her wrist and glances at a slender, silver watch. "They have it reserved for another ten minutes," she says. "But they should be out soon, and then it's our turn."

"You can't keep inviting me to the sowing room like this," the man says. "The other husbands will have cause for complaint."

"No they won't," she replies. "They get their minimum two times a week. So what if I invite you to the more often? I'm obeying the law."

"The letter of it, maybe," he says.

"Well, honey, I don't hear _you_ complaining."

"Actually, you do," the man says. "I'm complaining right now. Because I'm worried they might think…you know."

"Well…" The woman laces a fingertip underneath one of his suspenders and sensually pulls it halfway down his shoulder before kissing him through his white shirt. "You won't be complaining in about ten minutes, I assure you." The man smiles, but frowns when she continues, teasingly, "…When you're plowing my field with your big, hard planter."

Carol steps back and slaps the palm of her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, but she can still hear the exchange.

"Stop!" the man hisses. "Don't make fun of the holy language. People will think you're a doubter!"

"We're alone here. It's just you and me. And, come on, admit it. The imagery is a _little_ funny."

In the faint light drifting through the air vents, Carol can see Daryl flushing a pinkish red. But neither dares move. They barely breathe, and Carol keeps her hand over her own mouth.

The man must relax his fears, because he gets into the spirit of the teasing. His voice is playfully mocking when he says, "Are you going to show me your luscious hills, your peaks of plenty, and make your garden wet for me?"

"Why don't you water it yourself, handsome?" the woman teases back.

Daryl concentrates fiercely on his boots.

"I'm thinking…the fifth position," the man says.

"How about the third?" the woman counters.

"Why not both? We get the room for forty minutes."

The woman laughs. "I don't know that you recover that quickly."

The man's tone grows suddenly solemn and slightly bitter. "I hope you get pregnant soon so you can stop letting Elijah…" He makes a dissatisfied muttering sound.

"Oh, he's not so bad," the woman says. "And you won't be able to have sex with me either while I'm pregnant. But I promise I'll savor your fruit more than once a week."

Carol has to press her palm tighter over her mouth.

"You'll still have to savor _his_ once a week," the man mutters.

"You're not supposed to be jealous of your wife's love," the woman tells him. "Be careful. You'll be mistaken for a doubter. You don't want to end up like Hannah. That poor girl. On her fourteen birthday, _too_. And she didn't even _say_ anything that I know of!"

"Sometimes the Prophet sees things we don't," the man replies.

The woman sighs. "I hope she comes back to us, that the Prophet judges she's been re-enlightened. But I'm afraid she won't."

"Why not? Eve came back. And she's more fervent than any of us now. And Joseph came back."

"And then…" the woman's voice hollows out. "Did what he did to himself."

"That was an accident," the man insists. "He had too much of the holy wine. You know he always had a problem. That's why he was in the doubter's chair in the first place. He dishonored the law of the Prophet when it came to intoxicants. He must have relapsed. He toppled off that roof. He was _drunk_."

"There was no missing wine," she says. "And Esau never came back at all. _Four years ago_ he was delivered to the Prophet for re-enlightenment. Such a _young_ one, too. Only eight years old!"

"Because he was judged a pretender. The Prophet banished him to protect us."

"Where do you think the Prophet takes the doubters?" she asks. "To discern their hearts?"

"We shouldn't be talking about this," he insists. "It might lead us into doubt."

They fall silent. Carol and Daryl stay frozen in place, afraid if they move, they'll be heard, just as they can hear the couple on the other side of the painting. The man and the woman move onto other mundane topics. They talk about a daughter and how she's doing in her classes, about what will be for dinner, and about whether it might rain tomorrow. A door creaks open, and there's footsteps, and another couple exchange pleasantries with them before walking on.

After Carol and Daryl here the couple get up and the door shut, they wait another two minutes before daring to walk on.

When they're behind the safe cover of solid stone again, Daryl mutters, "Feel like a damn perv now."

"We got some good information, though," Carol says.

"Didn't get shit. Just learned they have weird sex practices. Hell's a sowing room? That where they _all_ go to fuck?"

"Seems like."

"Think the Prophet peeps on 'em while they're knockin' boots? That how she gets 'er jollies?"

"A _woman_?"

"Well, she's a nutbar. What makes ya think she ain't a perv, too?"

"Fair enough," Carol agrees. "But I think we would have gotten to that room by now, if it _was_ cut out." But so far, they've only passed solid wall. "And we learned more than that. We learned that the Prophet takes people from that Doubter chair and that they don't know where she takes them. We learned she banishes people if she thinks they don't believe. And we learned that not everyone's _completely_ sold on the religion. That could come in handy, if it ever comes to war."

"Let's hope it don't."

The crawlspace grows more and more narrow until they can't possibly fit through it anymore, so they turn around and back track. They don't hear anyone when they pass the sitting room, but they stop again at the spot before the baptismal pool, and Carol peers out.

There's a man and a woman there now, talking. The woman has her back to Carol. "I'm worried about her, Ammon," she says. "I caught her cavorting with Gideon again. She was letting him touch her breasts."

Ammon leans back against the railing above the pool and crosses his arms over his chest. "It's her choice, Rebecca. The Revelation says the girl chooses her own first husband. Not the _mother_ of the girl."

"Yes, but if she chooses Gideon, he has _two_ male cousins. She'll have to marry the oldest three months after marrying him, and the next three months after that. And they're thirty and thirty-two! Much too old for her. She may think she fancies that young man – but she's not going to fancy two grown-men who have been celibate for five years now. Aren't you worried about that?"

"The law does not permit abuse. They'll be gentle with her."

Rebecca sighs and shakes her head. "I wish she'd choose Malachi instead. He only has one male relative, and that boy is only ten. If she married him, she'd just have to have one husband for the next six years."

"With four husbands," Ammon replies, "she'll have more children. She'll be a Grand Lifegiver. She'll reach a higher spiritual plane. Don't you _want_ that for her? Or have you become a doubter?"

"No! No!" Rebecca swears. "I haven't become a doubter. Of course I want that for her."

"Good. Because the Prophet is preaching again tomorrow through the radio, and I'd hate to have to report you as a doubter."

"I'm not," she says shakily. "I'm not a doubter! I just want what's best for our daughter."

"Like you wanted what was best for your son Esau? Maybe you planted those doubts in his mind."

"No, I didn't! He was a just a little boy when he said those things. He was only eight. He wasn't thinking!"

"He was a pretender," Ammon says. "That's what the Prophet judged. That's why he never came back. I hope you're not a pretender, too." The man paces away, his footsteps echoing on the marble hall.

The woman grips the rail and stares into the pool of bright blue water below.

Carol draws back, re-tapes the hole, and they move on. When they're safe behind the soundproof walls again, she asks, "If the Prophet talks to them through the radio, how can they _not_ know she's a woman?"

"Dunno."

"Are you _sure_ you read those tracks right?"

"Hell, maybe she use a voice distorter. But them tracks – they either belong to a woman, or a damn small man. Shoe size weren't more than a seven and a half. 'N she was a diagonal walker. When men walk like that…just looks diff'rn."

"How would a woman have known about the tunnels under the Temple? There were no women in Mormon leadership, were there?"

"Dunno," Daryl mutters. "But I know 's gettin' near sunset. Let's get in position under the altar. Let's jump this bitch when she comes for her offerin'."


	54. Chapter 54

It's like hunting all over again, but even more boring. Carol has a terrible cramp in her left leg. She stretches it out across the stage under the altar until it's pressed against Daryl's.

He's probably uncomfortable, too, though she can't see. The lights have been turned off in the sanctuary. It's almost pitch black, and they've been waiting for what must be over an hour. But when that trap door eases open, and that Prophet crawls out and steps forward to retrieve her offering, Daryl will grab her legs and yank her to the ground, and then Carol will disarm her.

[*]

"Is it bigger than a bread box?" Khalid asks.

"Yes," Rosita answers.

"Did Ezekiel ever keep one as a pet?"

"I have no idea what pets Ezekiel may have had," Rosita says, "but if you're asking if it's a tiger, no."

"Might I have found one on a farm?"

"Yes," she says.

"A four-legged mammal that we didn't _typically_ keep in a zoo and that I might have encountered on a farm….A pig?"

"No."

"A goat?"

Rosita shakes her head.

"A sheep?"

"No."

"A horse?"

"No."

"A cow?"

"No. And you're out of questions. I win!"

"What was it then?" he asks.

"I'm sorry," she says. "You ran out of questions. I can't reveal the animal to you. You have to _solve_ it."

"Someone's still a bit bitter about losing in hangman, I see."

"It was a cat," Rosita says.

"I don't think of a cat as a farm animal."

"They're in the barns to kill the mice." Rosita sighs. "I miss my cat. She got eaten in about the first six minutes after it started."

"Of course you'd be a cat person."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing," he says. "What was her name? Your cat?"

"Don't laugh."

He smiles.

"Puff-puff."

Khalid snorts.

"Screw you," she says.

"I'll tell you what. When we get out of here, I promise to find you a kitten. There must be strays about somewhere."

"Even if you do, they'll be hostile and hard to tame."

"Well," he says, smirking across the table at her. "I've had some success dealing with the hostile and hard to tame."

She rolls her eyes, but she smiles back. For a moment, she forgets they're behind an iron door with no way out. But then a new fear suddenly crashes down on her. "What if the Prophet's followers don't know we're here?"

"What if they don't?" Khalid asks.

"What if the Prophet just dies in his sleep one night? Has a heart attack or something? No one will know we're here. We'll eventually run out of food. We'll just slowly starve to death."

Khalid's face distorts as though he's swallowed something disgusting. "That's not going to happen."

"You don't know that!"

"We're going to get through this, one way or the other." He extends an arm across the table, takes her hand, and squeezes. "Rosita we're going to get through this together."

"How can you be so calm!"

"Because one of us _has_ to be. Right now it's me. In a week or two it may be you. But _one_ of us _always_ has to be. Do you understand?"

Rosita nods. She comes over to him, crawls into his lap, and drapes her arms around his neck. The fear eases out of her as Khalid wraps his arms tightly around her. She holds back the tears that want to fall. And then, suddenly, she laughs.

"What's so funny?"

"That phrase," she says. "In the Hangman game." It dawns on her now what it was. "I love you."

"Why thank you," Khalid says. "I love you, too."

[*]

One thing Daryl's noticed about all the people they've been peeping on is that none of them walk around with weapons – other than knives - strapped to their belts. Not one. He hopes the same is true of the Prophet, though clearly the crazy woman owns an M60. Maybe she doesn't bring it with her to retrieve the offering, though.

Carol shifts in the darkness. He can almost hear her swallowing. She's getting impatient, he can tell. They've been here almost two hours now. Maybe they should have staked out the alcove by that iron door instead.

Finally, a creaking sound reaches Daryl's ears - the door opening in the stage. He shifts and senses Carol stretching a finger out above the trigger of her AR-15.

There's a glow of light, as if from a large flashlight or electric lantern, and then he sees black boots under the cloth.

Daryl lunges, grabs the boots by the ankles, and yanks. The body thuds against the stage, with the loud smack of a head hitting wood. The lantern flashlight clunks to the white wood and casts a bright halo on the white cloth of the altar. Carol scurries out with her rifle, and Daryl follows.

Light floats in a dusty haze in the air as Carol aims her rifle and Daryl looks down at the figure groaning on the stage.

It's a boy.

Maybe eleven or twelve years old.

[*]

Rosita grunts as she thrust herself up into her final, sweaty push-up and then collapses on the ground. "Stop looking at my ass," she tells Khalid.

"Well, I need some entertainment."

"You could be working out with me. We need to stay in shape."

"I'll work out later."

Rosita stands up, takes a towel from the book shelf, and cranes her neck to wipe off the sweat. "We haven't heard from the Prophet in hours. No response to our response to the questionnaire."

Khalid opens one of the manila folders. "Maybe it's the middle of the night," he says. "Maybe the Prophet is sleeping."

"I wish I had some idea what time it is. But I think sticking to a schedule will help. Even if we've got everything reversed, if we just get into a pattern…."

"Agreed."

She goes into the bathroom to wash up.

[*]

The boy opens his mouth to scream. Carol falls abruptly to her knees and covers his mouth with her hand while Daryl continues to look in shock at the figure he's brought to the ground.

"Give me your handkerchief," Carol demands.

Daryl keeps staring at the fallen boy.

"The one in your back pocket," Carol insists. "Daryl, give me your handkerchief."

Daryl shakes his head, reaches back, and flicks the red bandana out of his back pocket and hands it to her. While Carol gags the boy, Daryl retrieves his pack from beneath the altar and takes out ties to bind the boy's hands. Carol, who has shouldered her rifle, rolls the boy over on his stomach and pulls his arms behind his back, and Daryl binds his wrists.

The boy has left the trap door open, and Carol goes down first. Daryl lowers the squirming boy down to her as he rages against the gag and ties. Once the boy is on the ground, Carol pushes the barrel of her AR-15 against his chest and tells him not to move. The boy stills. "Get the offering," she calls up. "So they don't worry it hasn't been collected."

Daryl does, one box at a time, and then he returns for their packs. Once the trap door is closed above them, they leave the offering behind. Daryl clicks on his flashlight, and they lead the boy deeper into the tunnel until they find a light switch. Now that they've caught their prey and aren't trying to be unobtrusive anymore, Carol flicks it on. The overhead light bulbs that dangle from a cord on the roof of the tunnel flicker on and then buzz like moths around a flame.

"A small man who walks funny, huh?" Carol asks.

"Can't be," insists Daryl, looking their captive over. The boy's reddish-brown hair curls up at the back of his neck and his hazel eyes have grown distant and steely. "Kid can't be more 'n twelve. He'd of been seven when the Outbreak started."

"Are you the Prophet?" Carol asks the boy, and he looks abruptly away from her.

Daryl crouches down and lifts up one of his boots. "Tracks weren't this pattern."

"He might have changed boots."

"Weren't this size, neither. Kid's about a size smaller." Daryl stands.

"Don't scream," Carol demands as she shoulders her rifle. She removes the boy's gag. "Who are you and why were you coming for the Prophet's offering?"

The boy doesn't reply.

Carol looks the boy over. He's about the same size Carl was when Carol met him. Carol thinks back over all the conversations they've overheard today. She thinks about the boy two different couples mentioned never returning to the Temple, and about the reddish-brown-haired woman who seemed to mourn her son's loss. "Is your name Esau?"

The boy blinks in recognition, but he says nothing.

"Were you delivered to the Prophet when you were eight years old for doubting?" She shivers at the next idea - "Have you been in these tunnels for _four_ _years_?"

The boy stands straighter, taller, raises his chin, juts it out, and says, "I'm no doubter. The Prophet has enlightened me. I am the Disciple."

"Hell's that mean?" Daryl asks.

"One day, the mantle of the Prophet will fall upon me, and _I_ will be the Second Prophet. I will continue the work of the Lord Our God on the new earth, guiding and protecting His chosen people."

"Lead us to the Prophet," Carol tells the boy. "So that we, too, may be enlightened."

The boy's eyes flit to Carol's gun and Daryl's crossbow. "You're adversaries. You're not seekers. The only thing you seek is to destroy God's Holy Temple. I'll die before I reveal the Prophet to you."

"Yeah, well, that can be arranged, kid." Daryl seizes him by the back of his shirt and begins forcing him down the lit tunnel.

[*]

When Rosita comes back out of the bathroom, Khalid is reading the _Revelation_ again. "Don't read that too much. You'll go insane."

Khalid scratches his cheek. "The writing style of the questionnaires, and the writing style of these manuscripts…they're different."

"Different how?"

"Just…there's a different cadence. Different vocabulary. I mean, it's hard to tell given how short the questionnaires were, but it's almost as if the person who wrote this manuscript and the person who wrote the questionnaire are not the same."

"Do you hear that?" Rosita is near the door, and she swears that, as thick as it is, she can hear something on the other side. She puts her ear against it.

Khalid joins her. "Scratching?"

There's a thud against the door and then more scratching.

Khalid steps back cautiously. Rosita goes to the table and seizes the scissors. She returns, positioning herself by the door. Khalid puts a finger to his lips, and both stand in complete silence.

The scratching continues for about four minutes, interspersed with the occasional thud of something hitting the door – and then stops suddenly.

Khalid and Rosita remain silent.

[*]

When they arrive at the locked iron door where the roll tracks ended, Daryl demands, "Open this door and take us to the Prophet."

"No," the boy replies. "I'll die before I betray my Master, our Guide and our Protector."

Daryl turns him around and slams his back against the wall of the tunnel.

"Daryl," Carol cautions. "He's just a boy. He's clearly been brainwashed."

"Know that, damnit," Daryl mutters as he pats the boy down. "Still got to find our people." He roughly searches the kid's pockets and yanks out a key chain with two keys on it. "Gag 'em again," he orders. "Don't want 'em warning 'er."

"I'm sorry I need to do this," Carol tells the boy before putting the gag in his mouth.

Daryl has shouldered his crossbow and is fiddling with one of the keys in the lock. It doesn't fit, so he tries the second key. It slides in perfectly, and when he turns it, a loud click sounds in the tunnel. The hinges of the door creak when he swings it open. An angry hiss comes first, like the sound of steam rising from an engine, followed by a hungry growl.

Daryl leaps back as a glassy-eyed walker lunges toward him.

[*]

"Was that a walker?" Khalid asks with a whisper. "At our door?"

"It _sounded_ like a walker," Rosita replies. But it left when they got quiet. It probably couldn't smell them through that iron door. And since it couldn't hear them after they stopped talking, perhaps it forgot it thought there was food inside and wandered on in search of more. Or maybe it was distracted by some other sound.

"Why would there be a walker outside our door?" Khalid says. "Aren't we _inside_ someplace?"

Rosita turns her head slowly to him. "I told you it might happen. That the Prophet might die and turn."

Khalid shakes his head. "No," he says. "No." He walks over to the bookshelf, his eyes taking in a count of the freeze-dried meals and water bottles. "No, no, no…."

[*]

Carol struggles to line up her sights on the walker as it prepares to sink its teeth into Daryl's neck. Daryl kicks the walker back. It lurches forward again, and he squats low so Carol can get a clean shot.

The trigger slides back smoothly beneath her finger. The bang echoes in the tunnel, and Carol's ears ring. Daryl covers his ears with his hands, while the bound boy screams and lowers his head as if that could help him escape the sound.

While Daryl stands from his squatting position, Carol maneuvers around him. "Stay with the boy." She steps quickly over the fallen walker and points her gun down the long, straight, lit hallway, ready for more of the creatures, but there's nothing - nothing but a straight wall to the left, and four closed, iron doors about forty feet apart on the right. At the end of the tunnel is an open doorway leading into a room.

Carol remains with her gun trained in the direction of the open door and marches straight to it. She bursts into the room, clears right and then left, and then paces ahead to another door, which she kicks open to find an empty bathroom.

The bathroom has a toilet, a sink, and a small shower. The stainless steel counterspace is littered with rolls of gauze, antibiotic, and rubbing alcohol, and there are faded blood stains on the floor, as though someone tried to clean up the bathroom but couldn't get all the blood wiped up.

In the larger room is an unmade bed, a dresser, and a chest. An alcove off the big room houses a dining table and kitchenette. Another alcove has an office with two book cases, a green metal filing cabinet, and a closed, rolltop desk. There's a closet door, too, but it's shut and locked with a combination padlock.

Satisfied that the room is cleared, Carol heads back quickly toward Daryl and the boy.

[*]

Ever since she heard what sounded like the muffled sound of a gunshot echoing from somewhere down the hallway, Rosita has been standing with her ear pressed against the iron door, trying to hear what's going on, but the door is too thick.

The door shudders suddenly, and Rosita steps back.

"Hello?" a voice cries loudly on the other side. "Rosita? Khalid? Hannah? Anyone? Are you in there?"

It's a moment before Rosita can place the voice. Khalid recognizes it first. He rushes to Rosita's side and places both palms anxiously on the door. "Carol? Is that you? It's us. We're both here. Me and Rosita both!"

"The door's locked from the outside," Carol calls back. "Daryl and I are going to get you out, okay? Just stay put. We'll find a way to get you out. It might take us a while."

"Oh thank God!" Rosita cries.

[*]

When Carol gets back to the entrance of the hallway, she finds the boy on his knees before the fallen walker, screaming hysterically against his gag. Daryl, with his crossbow loose in one hand, watches the boy warily.

The fallen walker appears to be freshly turned. Its flesh has not begun to rot, and its long, still blond hair is untangled. The eyes are glassy, and the jaw deformed, but otherwise it seems almost human. The creature wears a fuzzy, white bathrobe, and now that the robe has fallen open, Carol can see the nasty gash across the once-woman's stomach. The short, thin, but deep cut has been crudely sewn up. Most of the stitches have torn apart, and the flesh now gapes partially open, revealing black walker blood and guts. The wound probably predates the creature's transformation. In fact, complications from that wound might be what killed her.

"Size seven 'n a half," Daryl says as he kicks lightly at the walker's left foot. "Think we found the Prophet."


	55. Chapter 55

The boy, now ungagged and unbound, sits on the floor with Carol, shaking in her arms and repeating one question - "Was the Prophet a pretender?" Meanwhile, Daryl tries the two keys on the boys' keychain in the other four iron doors.

Carol shushes and comforts Esau. He grows silent for a moment, and then mutters, "The Chosen are immune from the Scourge. There is no shadow of turning with the Chosen."

"No one is immune," Carol tells him.

"That's not true. I'm immune."

"Have you never seen anyone die and turn before?"

"Grandpa died. In the first year of the new earth. But he didn't turn. We kept the watch for three days in the mourning room before we buried him, and he didn't turn."

Carol considers how that could be. "Do your people have any ritual practices, Esau? Anything you do after someone dies?"

"We're supposed to pierce the brain with the freeing rod, to free the spirit. It was my mother's duty with Grandpa. It was supposed to be my duty with the Prophet, but I wasn't here."

"If you pierce _anyone's_ brain," Carol explains, "they won't turn. But if you don't, anyone will. Everyone has the disease within them."

Esau shakes his head. "No. No. The chosen are immune from the Scourge. _I'm_ immune. Only pretenders and adversaries turn."

"The Prophet turned, didn't she?" Carol asks softly.

Esau trembles and sniffles. "Was she a pretender all along?"

Carol strokes the boy's hair. "She deceived you and your people, Esau, about all of it. About the entire Revelation. She made it all up."

Esau shakes his head.

"Keys don't work in three of those doors," Daryl says as he returns to Carol. "Second one opened one. Empty bedroom. Probably the boy's."

"Esau," Carol says gently. "Where are the keys to the other doors?"

"A pretender…a pretender…Then where is the _real_ Prophet? A pretender…a pretender…"

"Search that open room at the end of the hall for keys," Carol tells Daryl. "I think it was the Prophet's." Daryl nods and disappears down the hallway.

The boy begins to still, but he won't stop looking at the glassy eyes of his former Prophet. "How long had she been training you?" Carol asks. "To take her place?"

The boy shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't know how long I've been here. After I was enlightened in reflective isolation, she honored me by showing herself to me. No man sees the Prophet's face and lives…except _me_. That's how she _knew_ I was the Disciple. But…" He stares at the walker. "She's a pretender? Does that mean _I'm_ a pretender, too?"

"You were put in the doubter's chair four years ago and taken down here. She brainwashed you. She isolated you so that you would break down psychologically. She told you lies until you believed them. Your mother – Rebecca? She misses you."

Esau blinks in recognition at the name, but then his eyes return to the fallen Prophet. "But the Prophet enlightened me! She honored me with secret truths and taught me things no Chosen man knows. She let me help her in her mission to protect the Temple."

"Help her how?"

"I'd open and close the manholes for her when she left. The last time she took a Doubter, and the last two times she took Watchers, I helped her prepare the rags of forgetfulness." The chloroform, Carol thinks, for drugging captives. "I delivered the questionnaires and the _Revelation_ through the doors. But she didn't let me write the questionnaires myself until this week. She didn't give me the honor of collecting the offering until tonight."

"Because she was too wounded to do those things herself," Carol says. She may have been training Esau to take her place, but she probably didn't actually expect him to do it for years. "Do you know how she got slashed?"

"She came back bleeding," Esau says. "From the forest. That Watcher did it, she said, while he was trying to cut free from the net. He cut her. He _slashed_ her, but she said it was an accident. She said he could still be enlightened." The boy shakes his head. "She was bleeding when I helped her get the net down. I did what she said…I got the Watchers in their room, locked them in, and then I tried to help her fix the wound…" He lets out a long sob, and Carol holds him until he quiets.

Daryl marches out of the room at the far end of the hall with an iron key in his hand. "Found this on the desk. Gonna try it on Rostia's room first." He goes straight to that door.

Carol lifts the boy to his feet. "Come here," she tells him and walks him down the hallway. As she does, she looks at the cement floor and sees the now dried blood that must have dripped from the Prophet's wound as she was returning to her room.

Carol sits the boy down against the wall in the hallway across from the door. "Stay there for now."

Daryl tries the key. It clicks in the lock and turns, and Carol breathes a sigh of relief. First Daryl removes the hotel-style chains locking the door at the top – all three of them – and then he uses the great iron handle to pull the door open.

Rosita and Khalid stand with smiles breaking out over their faces. Carol hugs Khalid and Daryl hugs Rosita, and grateful exclamations of relief fill the room.

"Where are we?" Rosita asks.

"In and underground bunker in the Temple," Carol answers. She explains how the Prophet died.

"I don't remember cutting her," Khalid says. "I don't remember anything after looking up."

"You were knocked out, and then you were drugged with chloroform," Carol says. "I can see why your memory might be hazy."

"What day is this?" Rosita asks, and when Carol tells her, she says, "We must have been unconscious for a full day, then."

Carol tells them about the boy in the hallway. "And I think there's another girl named Hannah locked in one of these rooms down here." Carol turns to check on Esau and sees he's vanished from the hallway where she sat him down.

She readies her rifle, races into the hallway, and sweeps before her and behind her. "Esau?"

Daryl swings his crossbow into position and flanks her.

The boy appears in the doorway of the Prophet's room with a handgun held shakily in his left hand. "Hell he get that?" Daryl mutters.

"Esau, drop the gun," Carol says gently. She aims her rifle at him, while Daryl trains his crossbow on the boy's head. "I have a rifle, and Daryl here has a crossbow. You're not going to be able to shoot us before we shoot you. We don't want to hurt you. Just drop it, _please_."

But Esau doesn't. He turns the gun on himself and presses it against his own head. "I'm immune," he says. "The Chosen don't turn! I'll show you! I'll show you the Chosen don't turn!"

"Esau, no. No," Carol says as she approaches him slowly. "Put it down, Esau. Let's talk, okay? Let's just talk."

"I'm one of the Chosen," he says as Carol draws nearer. "I was the Disciple." Carol is within a few feet of him now. "And now I _am_ the Second Prophet. I'm _immune_."

Carol flicks her hand out quickly, seizes the gun, and disarms him. The boy lunges for her AR-15 instead, but Daryl is there now, and he gets behind the boy and restrains him with an arm around his chest. The boy writhes desperately against Daryl's arm, but eventually flops like a ragdoll. Esau begins to weep.

Khalid and Rosita, after trying the iron key in the other two doors with no luck, join them.

"I'll stay with the boy," Carol tells Daryl. "While you search the room for more keys."

Daryl nods, and Carol takes the boy from him, leads him over to the wall, and makes him sit down. She sits beside him and begins to talk softly to him while the other three vanish into the Prophet's room.

[*]

The closet that was locked with a combination lock is wide open now. The boy must have known the combination, and it must be where he got his handgun, because it's full of weapons. It appears the Prophet has been collecting them from Watchers she captured.

"My rapier!" Khalid exclaims and seizes the sword. He slides it out of its sheath and examines the tip. "It looks like I _did_ cut her. Someone cleaned it off, but not very well. It's still a bit stained."

"And my rifle." Rosita takes hold of her AR-10 and slings it over her shoulder.

"I wonder what she did with our packs," Khalid says.

Daryl sits on the wooden chair and digs through the desk drawers until he finds a tiny key, which he tries in the locked roll top. It works, and he rolls it up.

"There's the typerwriter she used for the manuscripts," Khalid says. "And the copier." There's a small, flatbed photocopier in the corner of the roll top, and next to it a stack of printer paper.

"And the radio," Rosita says. Cords hang down from a cut-out in the desk and are plugged into an outlet on the wall. "Looks like she used a voice distorter."

"'S what I thought," Daryl mutters.

While he continues to look for keys, Rosita and Khalid summarize what they've learned from watching the Temple and reading the manuscripts.

[*]

Carol's been trying her best to calm Esau. She reminds him that he has a home and a family waiting for him, a mother who still loves him. "Would you tell me, please," she asks softly. "Is there a girl named Hannah in one of these other rooms?"

"She's being enlightened."

One room for the boy, one for Khalid and Rosita, and one for Hannah. "Is anyone in the fourth room?"

"A Watcher the Prophet captured."

"Do you know where the keys to those rooms are, Esau?"

[*]

Daryl finally finds another small key, too small for the iron doors, but it does open the locked filing cabinets. The drawers contain photo copies of the two manuscripts Khalid and Rosita were given, as well as some kind of scrapbook containing news articles.

"Let me see that book," Khalid says, and when Daryl hands it to him, Khalid slaps it on the roll top desk and begins paging through it while Daryl continues rummaging through the filing cabinet.

Rosita looks over Khalid's shoulder at the old articles about the building of the Mormon Temple. There's one about the groundbreaking, and one about the Temple being closed to the non-Mormon public. There's also a series of articles about a green energy engineer who was in charge of a project to re-design the power and water systems of the Temple in the 1990s. The engineer was required to sign a nondisclosure agreement before embarking on her three-year project to renovate the Temple's systems. One of the articles is in a section of the paper titled _Women in Science_.

"Daryl?" Rosita asks. "I didn't look at that walker you killed, but did it look anything like this woman?"

Daryl walks away from the filing cabinet and looks down at the photo in the album. "That woman's a lot younger."

"Well, this was taken a while ago. She'd be closer to fifty now."

Daryl leans down and peers at the photo. "Could be. Why?"

"I think we've just learned how she knew about this bunker," Khalid says. "She helped equip the Temple for new sources of power in the 90s. And then, after the Outbreak…she must have become the Prophet."

Khalid turns the page and finds more articles about the woman's engineering projects and then three lukewarm reviews of a dystopian science-fiction novel she published with a small press in 2001. One of the reviews describes the author as more interesting than her own book. The book reviewer calls her a _brilliant mind_ _with_ _diverse degrees in engineering, anthropology, and comparative religion_ , _a doctor of both science and divinity, a_ _nontraditionalist_ _who_ _embraced the polyamorous lifestyle_ _despite being_ _an active deacon in her Episcopal church_. _Her unique lifestyle_ , the book reviewer reports, _led to_ _deadly jealousy_ _when her husband murdered one of her lovers in a fit of drunken rage._

"Jesus," Rosita says.

"See if you can find this book in her bookcase," Khalid tells her.

Rosita returns with a trade-size paperback titled _A Covenant for Our Times_ and flips it over so they can read the summary blurb together:

 _When a deadly virus is released from a government lab, all but ten percent of the world's population is wiped out overnight. In the resulting apocalyptic wasteland, a team of engineers must rebuild the world. To prevent anarchy and sustain the population, a secret council of elders from six different world religions craft a new spirituality aimed at stabilizing society and repopulating the world. But can they convince the survivors to follow before they destroy themselves?_

"In a way," Khalid says. "She really did prophecy all this."

[*]

Esau looks up at Carol with glistening hazel eyes. "If she was a pretender, that I can't be the real Second Prophet."

"But you can be a boy, Esau. You can just…" Anger rises up in Carol and cinches her jaw. "You can just be a boy now."

"The who's the Prophet now? Are _you_ the Prophet?"

Carol could lie and tell him she _is_ the Prophet. She could demand that he help them find the keys. She could play on his brokenness and desperation to get what she needs. She could, but she doesn't. "No. Your people are going to have to find a way to lead themselves."

Esau hangs his head. She thinks he's crawled somewhere deep inside himself. But then he says, "I know where the keys are."

[*]

Daryl is crouched down rummaging through the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet – which so far contains only blue prints – when Carol walks into the room with the boy. "Esau says the rest of the keys to the other doors are in a small box on the shelf of the closet."

Daryl stands abruptly, paces straight to the closet, and begins to scour the shelf for the box, but he's distracted by all the weapons. There are handguns and hunting and gutting knives lining the top shelf of the closet, rifles and shotguns leaned against the wall, an axe on the floor, and…something else. Something familiar. Daryl reaches into the far corner of the closet, seizes a sheath, and then steps back. He grasps the silver-white hilt of the weapon and pulls it out with a rasp.

"Holy shit," Rosita says. "That's Michonne's katana!"


	56. Chapter 56

Carol takes the katana from Daryl and looks at it with awe. Then her eyes flit over all the handguns on the shelf. "I don't see Rick's revolver up there." She turns to at Esau. "Is there just _one_ watcher in that room?"

"Yes."

"A black woman?" Carol asks. Esau nods, and Carol grows more excited. "Did the Prophet have a helicopter?"

"A helicopter?"

"You know, those flying machines with blades? You remember them, don't you?" He was only seven when the Outbreak started. Who knows what he's forgotten.

"Where would she get a helicopter?" Esau asks.

"Our friends were taken up in a helicopter a year ago. It took them during…" This kid has never known war. "During a chaotic situation. And we could never find it or them. We thought they were both dead."

Daryl searched for Rick and Michonne for three weeks, but there was no hint of where that helicopter had gone, and there were people to be fed back at the Hilltop.

"That Watcher didn't come here that long ago," Esau tells her. "The Prophet was getting ready to issue her discernment, so the Watcher must have been here about five months."

Daryl finds the box the boy says has the keys and turns it in his hands, but there's no way to open it.

"Give it here," Esau insists. "There's a secret compartment. The Prophet showed me yesterday, so that if she died from the wound…" He swallows. He spits out his next words in a tone of disillusionment. "So I could be the Second Prophet."

Daryl hands the box over. Esau, searching for something, runs his fingertips over the delicately carved floral pattern that outlines it. He pushes down hard on a particular spot, and the bottom of the box drops halfway out. Two iron keys tumble to the floor.

Daryl falls to his knees to grab them up, and they all hurry to the first locked door. Carol undoes the outer chain locks, and then Daryl inserts and turns the key with a click. He swings the door wide open and finds a teenage girl, her back to the far wall, her light brown hair a tangled mess, her blue eyes wild with fear, and a pair of scissors in her hands and pointing toward the door.

"Hannah?" Carol asks.

"Stay back!" she tells them, and jabs the scissors in the air. "I'll cut you! I'll - " she stops suddenly and stares at the boy. "Esau? Is that _you_? You're _alive_? You weren't banished?"

"It's…it's me," Esau stutters.

"You're so much bigger now!" She drops the scissors, runs to the boy, and hugs him. Esau stands stiffly at first, but eventually hugs back.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I helped her keep you here. I'm _so_ sorry."

The girl pulls away. " _Her_? Her who?"

"The Prophet."

"The Prophet is a woman?" Hannah asks.

"Or…the false Prophet." Esau shakes his head. "I don't know anymore. She died. She turned, Hannah. The Prophet turned! Like the pretenders do."

"Stay with them," Carol tells Khalid. "Calm them down. Tell Hannah what's going on, as much as you think is reasonable."

Khalid nods, and Carol, Daryl, and Rosita head to the last of the locked doors. Daryl slides the key into the lock. It slips into place. Carol holds her breath as he turns it and waits for the tell-tale click.

 _Click._

Daryl swallows and looks from Rosita to Carol.

"I'll do it," Rosita says, and Carol and Daryl both step back. "You ready?"

They nod, and she swings the door open.

The room is completely dark. No lights on, no windows. But light from the hallway seeps into the room, and Carol can make out a figure lying on the air mattress, her back to the door, her head on the pillow, the comforter pulled up to just below her bare shoulders. Black skin, but no dreadlocks. Her hair is short and tightly shaved.

"Is she dead?" Rosita asks from behind them.

"Think she's just sleepin'," Daryl says.

Daryl takes a step forward and hovers over her. "'Chonne?"

The figure rolls over, throws back the blanket, and brandishes a pair of scissors. She growls with white teeth. Her mouth stops curling and eases back into a line, and her eyes widen with surprise. "Daryl?" Michonne drops the scissors, stands, and rushes forward to hug him.

Daryl pulls abruptly away, flushing, because Michonne is wearing only a pair of panties and a tank top.

"Let me get dressed."

As Daryl averts his eyes, Michonne throws on her clothes. Carol notices the way the tank top pulls across her belly. She's _pregnant_ – and showing.

Michonne hugs Carol and then Rosita, steps, back, and says, "How did you get here?" she asks. "How did you _find_ me?"

"How did _you_ get here?" Carol replies. "Where were you before you were here? And… _are you pregnant_?"

"And what the hell happened to your hair?" Rosita asks.

"I shaved my hair months ago," Michonne replies. "Short hair is just easier." She looks Daryl over, observing his hair. "I see Daryl figured that out, too. And, yes, I'm pregnant. I didn't realize it until after I was captured and taken here."

Carol, with her eyes on Michonne's belly, says, "You must be six months along. We think you've been here five months."

"Where's Rick?" Daryl asks.

Michonne lets out a trembling sigh. "Rick didn't make it. Our camp was overrun by a herd of walkers about two weeks before I was captured and taken here. He made a path for me, so I could get out. But he got bit. On the shoulder." Her voice chokes. "There was nothing we could do."

Daryl's nostrils flare. He grits down on his teeth as his eyes water, and he begins to pace toward the wall. He's mourned Rick's loss already, Carol knows, months ago, but this news comes like a fresh blow in the wake of renewed hope. She walks over to him and wraps her arms around him from behind, and he leans back into her embrace, head drooped. She kisses his shoulder, listens to his heavy sigh, and then lets him pull away. Daryl returns to Michonne and glances at her belly. "Baby's Rick's?"

She nods. "I guess I must have gotten pregnant shortly before he died. Judith?"

"She's good," Daryl says. "Everyone been lookin' out for 'er. Growin' like a damn weed."

Michonne breathes a sigh of relief. "And how is everyone else? What happen after we won the War?" Rick and Michonne were taken up in the helicopter just after the Whisperer's base was blown up, so she has safely – and correctly – assumed they won.

"Been at peace a year," Daryl replies. "Hilltop's still strong. So's the Kingdom. Oceanside. We all got more people now."

"Enid got married," Rosita says. "To Liam, one of the young knights of the Kingdom."

" _Married_?" Michonne says. "Wow. Isn't she just…"

"- Almost nineteen," Carol says. "He's a decent kid, though. Well…not a _kid_ …he's almost twenty-two."

"Glenn, Jr.?" Michonne asks.

"Doin' great," Daryl says. "Talkin' up a storm now. Where'd ya go? Where'd that helicopter take ya?"

"Is it really safe to pause and have this conversation here?" Michonne asks. "I mean, don't we need to get _out_ of this place?"

"We need to figure out what to do with Esau and Hannah," Carol says. "We need to plan our next step. No one in the Temple knows we're down here, and it's nighttime anyway. I'd say we have time to talk."

[*]

Neither Michonne nor Rosita want to stay in one of those rooms, so they convene in the hallway. Daryl and Carol sit side by side against one wall, and Rosita and Khalid against another, while Michonne sits cross-legged on the cement floor facing the Prophet's open bedroom. Hannah and Esau cried themselves to sleep in Hannah's cell while Khalid sat with them, so he tucked them in with a blanket. He's left the door open and is sitting with one eye on it, in case they wake up. He also took the scissors from the room as a precaution.

"I can't believe you're still so level headed after five months in that room," Rosita says. "How do you keep your sanity intact?"

"At first, I just cried a lot," Michonne replies. "Like I'd been doing for two weeks, because I'd lost Rick. I slept a lot, and I thought of slitting my wrists with those scissors. But then, when I realized I was pregnant," she puts a hand on her belly, "I knew I had to live for our child. And I also wanted to get back to Judith. I started being very careful about what I ate and exercising gently. I made a routine for myself, a checklist of things to do every day, to keep me focused and sane."

"That was my plan," Rosita said.

"I asked for more notebook paper, so I could take notes and reflect on the Revelation, but I just used it to write a narrative of everything that's happened to me since the Outbreak, to keep my mind busy and focused and to remember who I am and who my people are."

"I was planning a second volume of poetry," Khalid says.

"Who _are_ you anyway?" Michonne asks.

"Khalid," Rosita says. "He's a knight of the Kingdom. And a scout. And a plumber." She smiles at him. "A jack of all trades."

"We've met," Khalid tells Michonne. "We fought together at that battle in Centreville against the Whisperers. But…" He looks at Rosita. "Women never seem to remember me for some reason."

"There was a lot going on," Rosita tells him.

"I don't suppose you got prenatal care," Carol says.

"Actually, I asked for vitamins on one of the questionnaires I returned. My captor gave them to me. Not prenatal, but a good multi-vitamin. And there was always enough food. I've probably had better nutrition than Lori did."

"So how the hell did ya get here?" Daryl asks.

Michonne sighs. "It's such a strange story, you probably aren't going to believe it."

"Hell," Daryl says, "can't be any stranger than any of the stories we've already lived through. Tell on."


	57. Chapter 57

_Flames consumed the Whisperer's base. Rosita's bomb had worked, but the explosion drew walkers out of the woods in every direction. Michonne and Rick ran and shot and tried to slash a path through the growling monsters, but the creatures kept pressing in. When all hope seemed lost, from out of seeming nowhere, a helicopter roared above the fray, hovered, and dropped a ladder down to them. They knew they might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but what choice did they have? Michonne climbed the ladder first, and then Rick, and the chopper flew away. There was a pilot in the front seat, and next to him, a woman._

 _"Our friends!" Rick cried over the roar of the blades. "They're trapped!"_

 _The woman half-leaned out of her passenger's seat and turned around. Her pant suit was strangely immaculate._

"It was Georgie," Michonne says.

"Who?" Khalid asks.

"The woman who came to the Hilltop before the War with the Saviors was over. She gave us that book about how to build aqueducts and gristmills and such."

 _"Your friends have escaped," Georgie said. "We saw them outrun the herd. We just need you. You're in charge, aren't you, Rick?"_

 _"How do you know my name?"_

 _Georgie smiled. "I'm good with names."_

 _"And no, I'm not in charge. Not anymore." The Whispers had burned Alexandria to the ground a month ago._

 _"But you coordinated the Alliance. You have influence with all of the surviving communities," Georgie said. "It's time for you to see the Capitol of the Republic." Georgie sat forward and would tell them no more._

 _They flew a good two hundred miles before the helicopter ran low on fuel and set down in a field. Armed soldiers awaited them with a fuel tanker. The landing pad was just outside a bustling community secured by a triple barbwire fence._

 _"Is that the Capitol?" Rick asked._

 _"No, it's just one of our satellites," Georgie told him. "This is our refueling point. We have miles to go yet."_

 _They flew on and eventually crossed the Canadian border, where they flew over a river, then a guarded wall that stretched for miles, and landed at a heliport on top of a hospital building._

 _"This part of Canada was sparsely populated," Georgie told them. "There weren't may flesh-eaters to clear, and now there are none within the boundaries of the Capitol."_

"It was a small city," Michonne tells them. "A city with apartments, a hospital, houses, schools…and twenty thousand people."

"Twenty fuckin' thousand!" Daryl exclaims.

"Georgie wanted us to see it. She wanted us to know what they'd created. The city was impressive. They even had a small refinery of their own there. They were still producing usable gasoline."

 _Georgie invited them to stay as guests of the Republic for one month, but when they said they had a child and needed to get back to her, they weren't permitted to leave. The confinement was benign – they were given a small apartment in an apartment building and left free to roam within the Capitol, but the exit gates remained closed to them. Because they were assured they could leave in a month, and that they would be transported back, they decided not to risk fighting their way out._

 _Georgie wanted them to stay long enough to appreciate what the Republic had built, because she wanted to send engineers back with Rick to help build up the Alliance like that. She'd been observing the Alliance. She was waiting to approach Rick until she knew what the Alliance had left after its War with the Whisperers._

"And I think she wanted to take advantage of the disarray that might follow that war to offer new leadership," Michonne explains. "At the end of our month there, she told us she wanted to appoint her own governors to lead the Hilltop, the Kingdom, and Oceanside and make us all satellites of the Republic. Rick wasn't too happy about that."

"Damn right he wasn't," Daryl mutters. "We ain't no one's satellite!"

"She offered Rick and I a small house in the Capitol and positions in her Cabinet if we'd agree to persuade the three communities to hand over leadership without a fight."

"'N I hope ya told her she could shove 'er offer up 'er ass," Daryl says.

"We didn't use those words, exactly. But we said we were sure the communities of the Alliance wouldn't be comfortable giving up their sovereignty to puppet governors, but that we'd all likely be happy to trade with the Republic and pay for engineers to help us build."

 _Georgie told Rick and Michonne that she was sorry about their decision and promised to transport them to the Hilltop the next morning, but the next morning, there was supposedly a problem with the roads between the refueling port and the Hilltop. Those roads would take four days to clear, so there was no sense in leaving yet. But in four days, there was supposedly a problem with the helicopter that would take three days to fix. But in three days, there was supposedly a problem with the fuel supply for the helicopter… Michonne and Rick began to talk of risking an escape attempt and traveling home on foot._

"But then something happened."

"What?" Carol asks.

"The Republic had a caste system," Michonne answers. "The top caste was by far the smallest, and consisted of the politicians, planners, bureaucrats, generals, and engineers. The second caste was larger and had the rest of the army, the doctors, the mechanics, and the educators. And the third cast was by far the largest – it had the laborers, farmers, maids, janitors, handymen, cooks, tailors, and so forth. Georgie called herself President, and they had what they called a Senate, which made the laws, but the representation was uneven. The bottom caste had five representatives in the Senate. The second caste had seven, and the top cast had nine. Georgie thought that a clear hierarchy was essential to maintaining order and making sure things got built and repaired and supplied. But the people in the bottom caste weren't so happy about it. And they were well over half the population."

"You keep speaking in the past tense," Khalid observes. "Is the Capitol no more?"

"There was an uprising of the lower caste. All of the off-duty soldiers were murdered in their sleep. Someone from inside the army probably helped with that. Georgie and her guards were killed, as were all of the Senators from the top caste and their guards, and most of the generals."

"Damn," Daryl mutters.

 _The surviving army fought back when they caught wind of the uprising, but some of the soldiers ended up switching loyalties and joining the lower caste in its effort to take over. Within three days, the lower caste had control of the Capitol and the army. The wall was heavily guarded, and the guards were shooting people on sight if they tried to escape the Capitol, so Rick and Michonne couldn't get out. Because they were living in the small apartments, though, and Georgie had only told her inner circle about them, Rick and Michonne were assumed to be in the lowest caste, and they were left alone while the rebels plundered and executed the rest of the top caste._

"We tried to lay low, to blend in, to survive," Michonne explains. "The rebels didn't seem to have much of a plan. They killed off all the engineers in the upper caste, so when they ran into problems with the power and water systems two months later, they didn't know how to fix them. The place was falling apart. Rick and I finally managed to escape one night by killing some guards and getting out in the helicopter."

"Ya can fly?" Daryl asks.

"Rick's uncle was a helicopter pilot," Michonne tells him. "Rick went up with him a few times and learned some things, but he didn't really know what he was doing. It was a bit of a mess."

 _Rick managed to get the helicopter up in the air, through some dips and dives, and he flew it straight toward the wall. The guards opened fire on them, and the bullets plinked off the metal. A few punctured the fuel tank. Rick almost hit the wall itself, and did knock over one guard before getting them higher in the air._

 _The helicopter leaked fuel for maybe forty miles beyond the wall before Rick gave up and made a rough landing on a highway. Neither broke any bones, fortunately, but they were bruised and scraped up. They continued on foot until they were able to find a couple of usable bicycles. But they were hundreds of miles from the Hilltop, and they ran into obstacles as they journeyed home to their people – herds, washed out bridges…_

"The usual," Michonne says. "It took a very long time. And then Rick got bit and died."

 _Michonne, alone and not even sure she wanted to live anymore, found the Temple two weeks later. She was walking with curiosity around the fence line – not knowing anyone lived there- when she saw a little girl through the iron bars alone in the woods chasing a chipmunk._

"I called to her, and she ran away screaming. I didn't know if she was alone in there – I couldn't see that far through the trees."

 _So Michonne tried to find a way in. The gate looked locked and rusted, and eventually she gave up and decided she'd move on to the Kingdom in the morning, since it was the nearest community in the Alliance. It was near sunset, so she set up camp in the woods outside the Temple._

"And I honestly don't know what happened after that. I woke up here."

"That Prophet must have been one hell of a sneaky bitch," Daryl says, "to get the drop on all y'all."

"Was she a Navy Seal or something?" Michonne asks.

"She was a green energy engineer," Rosita says, "and a novelist."

"Well that's a bit humbling," Michonne mutters.

"So what?" Carol says. "I was a housewife."

"No!" Khalid exclaims. When Carol nods, he says, "Well, that explains the quality cooking."

"My plan once I decided I wanted to live was to play along," Michonne says, "to appear to believe, and to get admitted to the so-called community of the Chosen. I thought maybe once I did that, I could safely have the baby. And then when the baby was a little stronger, I'd somehow escape with him or her."

"They know 'bout the Alliance?" Daryl asks. "The people who's rulin' the Capitol now?"

"I doubt it. Like I said, Georgie only told her inner circle about us, and they killed all the politicians. Even if they do know about us, after killing the engineers and planers and all those people…I'm not sure they'd have the means to get all the way down to us. They have a fleet of vehicles, but I doubt their refinery is running anymore, and they had maybe two months of fuel left when we escaped. They only had the one helicopter, and we crashed it. I think if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone."

"Damn well gonna leave 'em alone," Daryl mutters.

Rosita shakes her head. "We _should_ have left the Temple alone."

"But here we are," Carol says. "So what are we going to do about it? We've got two very rattled kids sleeping in that room, and a Temple full of people who don't know their Prophet is dead. We need to make some decisions."

"Got to take them kids with us," Daryl says. "Leave before sunrise. Get the hell out of Dodge."

"I don't know about that," Carol replies. "Esau was taken from his mother. She misses him. You overheard her in that hallway. She deserves to know he's alive."

Daryl shakes his head. "Weren't _taken_ from 'er. She _let_ 'em be put in that chair. Ya want 'em to go back to a mama like that?"

"She was pressured," Carol says. "She probably felt like she had no choice. They're all brainwashed in a way. And she was just trying to survive. Think of the things we've done to survive. We need to give these people a chance to see what they'll do when they're free from following the Prophet."

"How in the hell we gonna see that?" Daryl asks. "We got Rosita. Got Khalid. Got 'Chonne. We're takin' the kids, gettin' the hell out of here. Leavin' no trace."

"They have living _parents_ , Daryl, mothers and fathers, both of them. What if they don't want to come with us? Then we're kidnapping them."

"Why don't we _ask_ them what they want?" Khalid ventures.

"'Cause it ain't up to 'em," Daryl says. "'N the boy's out of it. Tried killed hissself once already."

"But Hannah seems pretty stable," Khalid says. "I talked to her some. She's had her doubts about the Prophet and the religion for a long time, and she may know how strongly the rest of the Temple people do or do not believe."

"I agree with Khalid," Rosita says, "let's at least hear the kids out before we make this call."

"Hell is there to hear?" Daryl asks. "If we leave the kids, they'll know 'bout us."

"But they won't know where we live," Carol reasons. "Why would they bother coming after us?

"'Cause we killed their Prophet."

"She was already dead," Carol replies.

"Sure they're gonna see it that way?" he asks.

"How would they find us?" Carol asks. "They haven't left this place in years."

They argue a bit longer, and agree to get some rest and continue the discussion after talking to the kids and getting more information about the people in the Temple.

"We're staying here another night!" Michonne exclaims.

"It's the safest thing to do," Carol reasons. "It's dark out there. And it's safe down here."

Michonne sighs. "Then I'm staying in the hall and keeping watch."

[*]

Carol comes out of the room where she's been sleeping with Daryl and joins Michonne in the hallway. "I can't sleep," she says. "Do you want to try to?"

Michonne, who sits with her katana across her lap, shakes her head. Carol sits down across from her.

"Are those two a thing?" Michonne asks. "Khalid and Rosita?"

"I don't know if they're quite as together as Daryl and I are, but…they're something."

"Whoa. Wait." Michonne grins. "You and Daryl are together? As in…" Michonne makes a circle with her finger and pushes a finger in and out of it. "Together, together?"

"Stop!" Carol insists, flushing. "And yes. Why did you think we were sharing a room just now?"

Michonne shrugs. "Because you two have always been close. It's not as if you've never bunked side by side around a camp fire before." She grins. "But it's about damn time that went somewhere! So you moved to the Hilltop?"

"No, I'm still in the Kingdom."

"So Daryl moved to the Kingdom?"

"No, he's still at the Hilltop. But we see each other one or two days a week."

Michonne shakes her head. "Long-distance relationships are a pain the ass."

"Tell me about it," Carol agrees.

"I guess I'll be living at the Hilltop now. Judith's there. I'm not sure how thrilled Maggie is going to be to have me living there, though."

"I'm sure she'll be very glad you're alive. We all are."

"She'll be glad I'm _alive_ ," Michonne agrees, "but let's be honest. She and Rick didn't exactly see eye-to-eye over a lot of things. It was for the best when we went back to Alexandria and she stayed at the Hilltop, and she could lead separate people separately."

"But you're not Rick," Carol says. "You're your own person." Carol used to wonder if sometimes Michonne forgot that after she and Rick got together, but she certainly doesn't say so. She's in no position to judge. She lost herself completely when she married Ed. But she's determined not to repeat that mistake with Daryl. She's almost glad they argued tonight over what to do about Esau and Hannah, that they both stood up for their separate opinions, that neither automatically bowed to the other.

Michonne sighs. "I don't _want_ to be my own person. I feel like I've been walking around with half my soul missing." She sniffles, blinks, and bites down on her back teeth. "Some nights, I still reach for him." Michonne chokes on the last word and begins to cry, and Carol comes over to sit beside her and wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"You don't have to mourn alone anymore," Carol tells her. "Just let it out. Let it all out."


	58. Chapter 58

Daryl leaps awake when he senses a presence but relaxes instantly when he feels Carol's familiar arms wrap around him. She's breathing a little unevenly and has pressed her forehead to his shoulder, so he rolls to her, puts a hand on her cheek, and asks, "Somethin' wrong?" It's a funny question, maybe, given everything they've gone through in the past day, but he means _something other than the obvious_.

She presses her forehead to his. "I was talking to Michonne about Rick. I feel so badly for her."

"Miss 'em," Daryl mutters. "Missed 'em for a year though. Thought he was dead. Then thought maybe…" He shrugs.

"You felt it all over again?"

He nods slightly. "He was m' best friend. Mean…'Cept you."

Carol swallows and strokes his hair. "Life is so fragile in this world." She kisses him and then whispers, "Make love to me."

He looks over her shoulder and sees she's shut the door except for a sliver. He slides a hand gently beneath her shirt, cups a bare breast – she's taken off her bra to sleep – and kisses her.

Daryl makes love to her slowly and tenderly, the warmth of her soft body pressed beneath his, possessed by his. It's quiet love making, with whimpers and sighs and gentle pleas and a breathy release after which Carol holds him in place. She doesn't seem to want him to move out of her, to disconnect from her. But eventually his weight must be too much, because she lets go and shifts her body enough to let him know he needs to roll off.

He kisses her cheek as he slides to the side and leaves one arm drooped across her waist.

"I love you, Daryl," she says. It's not something she says any more often than he does, but she says it now, almost desperately.

"'N I love you," he whispers in her ear. He kisses her earlobe and closes his eyes. He doesn't expect to sleep, but sleep overtakes him.

[*]

They all wake early in the morning and talk to the kids. Neither Esau nor Hannah want to leave their families. Hannah is desperate to see her father again, Esau his mother. They both say that if the Temple people can be convinced to rule themselves, Hannah's father would make a good and fair leader.

"Would he have enough support, if there was an election?" Carol asks.

"I think so," Hannah says.

"Is there anyone who might seize power in the Prophet's absence who would make a brutal leader?" Michonne asks.

"Ammon, maybe," Hannah says.

Carol recognizes the name. That was one of the husbands of Esau's mother – though apparently not Esau's designated father – who made threats of calling her a doubter.

"Would he be likely to win an election?" Rosita asks.

"I don't think so," Hannah answers. "He's not very well liked. My people aren't violent or cruel."

"Ain't cruel to turn over a kid to be brainwashed?" Daryl mutters. "Ain't cruel to let people be banished? Ain't violent to let people be kidnapped and knocked over the head?"

"They thought they had to," Hannah says. "They thought the Prophet was protecting them. And they thought Esau and I would be infected with the Scourge if we couldn't be enlightened. When I was eleven, and this all started, my dad and uncles heard the Prophet's broadcast in Virginia, before the radios all went out. We were locked up in our house, living off our storage food, my dad and uncles just shooting the rotting man beasts from the window…and for days we listened to her preaching. They believed it. I did, too. It all fit, and no one else was telling us what happened. We came here and found copies of the _Revelation_ , a safe place, and a growing community. And _the Revelation_ …it fit. It fit everything that was happening, and it looked like it was written long before. So we all thought we had to follow it. My dad and my two uncles married a woman here, and things were safe. As long as we did what the Revelation and the Prophet said, we were safe. Even the radio still worked here, and the Prophet kept speaking to us. If you tell them the Prophet was false, most of them won't believe you."

"What if…" Khalid muses. "We don't tell them the Prophet was false, but that she _retired_?"

They continue to discuss and formulate a plan. Esau shows them the secret door in the back of the Prophet's closet, which opens to reveal Khalid and Rosita and Michonne's packs, as well as several others from captured Watchers over the years. The closet goes way back and contains more bottled water and freeze-dried food. As tempting as it is to plunder it all, they plan to leave the food and water behind for now. On foot, it will be hard to transport, and, besides, the kids may need it.

[*]

"Remember what we talked about," Carol tells Esau and Hannah as she looks from one to the other in the hallway. "You don't tell _anyone_ about this bunker. If things don't work out in the Temple, if either of you feel you're at risk, you get down in here and you hide. One or more of our scouts will be back in three weeks to check on you."

The major snows probably won't start for at least four or five weeks. The roads will still be easy to travel, and three weeks should give the Temple community enough time to either choose new leadership and settle into a pattern or blow up in internal conflict, whichever happens. But either way, the kids have a safe haven to retreat to.

"If you want us to take you back with us then," Carol assures them, "we will. If you don't, leave us a note in the bunker to tell us you're all right. We won't be showing ourselves to your people, and we won't be bothering them."

Esau and Hannah both nod.

Carol checks her pocket watch, which reads 8:58. "You said the radio transmission starts at 9 a.m. this morning?"

"Yes, ma'am," Hannah replies. "Every Wednesday morning."

"You two head on now and follow the plan," Carol tells them.

Hannah takes Esau's hand, and Daryl leaves with them to walk them back through the tunnels to the manhole that empties onto the Sanctuary stage.

When Carol goes into the Prophet's room, Rosita's already fiddling with the radio on the roll top desk. Crackling comes through the speakers, and then the voice of a man: "Your Chosen people are gathered, oh Prophet, our Guide and our Protector. We await your Word."

Rosita sets up the voice distorter and hands the microphone to Carol. She's been chosen to speak because she's a woman of about the same age the Prophet was, so her voice, when distorted, is more likely to sound like hers. Hannah and Esau have talked her through the cadence with which the Prophet spoke, and she's practiced a few times. She now looks at the short script Hannah wrote her, which contains the Prophet's usual mode of introduction when the radio preaching begins, as best as the girl can recall it.

Her skin tingling with nerves, Carol takes hold of the microphone and presses down the button. "This is your Prophet," she reads from the paper, "your Guide and your Protector. Gather around, oh chosen flock of God, and hear my words. Hear the continued revelation sent to me through the inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord our God, who frees you from the Scourge, who has chosen you from among the people of the world to build and repopulate His new earth. Lean your ears to hear, and clear your minds to receive, the Word of God through His most holy Prophet."

Carol lets go of the button on the microphone and takes in a deep breath before continuing with the words they all agreed upon this morning, and which Khalid authored in the style of the _Revelation_. She pushes the button down again and tells the people that the ministry of all prophets must someday come to an end, that even Jesus Christ only preached for three years before he left his disciples to be guided by the Holy Spirit and to teach each other. She mentions Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Buddha, and Moses, the tradition of prophets all leaving their people in time.

Carol tells them that she, the Prophet, is retiring from her public ministry and that God has revealed to her that his Chosen must now elect their own leader. "Let everyone twelve and over have one vote." That will allow both Esau and Hannah to vote. "And when you have elected a leader to guide and protect the flock in my absence, choose also a Council of five members to advise him or her, through the vote of the flock."

Carol goes onto preach, "You have heard it said that a woman must marry by eighteen, and that she must marry her husband's brothers and cousins, but I say unto you, through the inspiration of the Spirit, that the time of necessity for such marriage law is past. The purpose of the old law has been fulfilled, and, henceforth, every man and woman shall marry whom they choose, when they choose, and with mutual consent. The old law has passed away, and a new law must take its place, a law created with the consent of the governed. Your elected Council will be instilled with the authority to interpret the Revelation for your times and to revise the laws through oral and written tradition as suits the flock. The Lord your God has entrusted you with the power to rule yourselves."

She tells them, too, that they must now to protect and guard themselves. "Some who come to your gates may be adversaries, but others may be friends. It is not belief or lack of belief that defines an adversary or a friend. A friend may not share your beliefs, but a friend will not seek to harm you. A friend will trade with you. An adversary will seek to kill you and overtake the holy Temple. This is how you shall judge between friends and adversaries."

Carol tells them, too, that the Spirit has revealed to her that there is to be no more judging of doubters and no more putting them out of the congregation of the Chosen. "He who believes, let him believe. And he who does not believe, let him walk his own path, so long as he is a benefit to the community, and does not seek to harm others. This is the new Revelation the Lord Your God has given to you through your Prophet."

Daryl has returned and now stands in the open doorway of the Prophet's bedroom. He nods to her. Carol tells her radio audience that their children Esau and Hannah have been judged "a benefit to the community" and will be returned to them, that when this broadcast concludes, and the congregation of the Chosen exits the roof where they are listening to it, they can find their children in the Sanctuary, awaiting them at altar, "ready to rejoin the flock of the Chosen and to live in freedom."

Carol concludes her sermon: "This is the final word of the Prophet, Your Guide and Protector. This word I leave you – God's word I leave you - love one another, protect one another, forgive one another, hear one another, be kind to one another. When this radio goes silent, you shall never again hear the voice of the Prophet, but you must listen carefully to the still small voice of your own conscience. Your Prophet, your Guide and Protector, has spoken."

Carol lets go of the button on the microphone. Rosita clicks off the radio and unplugs it. They all slip out of the Prophet's bedroom and hurry down the tunnel. Daryl and Khalid lift the Prophet's walker body and take it with them. They exit through the manhole that comes out near the creek. Carol closes it behind them and covers it with brush.

Daryl and Khalid heave the Prophet's body in the creek, where it lands on its back with a crunch beside the other slain walkers.


	59. Chapter 59

They all walk together to where Khalid has buried his bicycle, and then on another half mile to where Rosita has buried hers.

After Rosita and Khalid pedal off, Carol tells Michonne, "We'll all go to the Kingdom first. It's closer. You shouldn't be walking pregnant on foot all the way back to the Hilltop. We'll get you two a horse. Daryl can bring it back when he comes to visit on Sunday."

"Hope them kids are a'ight," Daryl mutters.

"I do, too," Carol says.

"Dunno why they wanted to stay in crazy town."

"The devil you know," Michonne muses. "Is better than the one you don't."

Daryl stops walking suddenly along the road and slings his bow into his hands. His eyes dart along the tree line beyond the shoulder.

"It's Avonaco," says a disembodied voice, and Daryl relaxes. The lean man emerges from the trees and joins them.

"I told you to go back," Carol tells him.

"And the King told me to scout for three days. And I suppose it wouldn't hurt for Cassandra to worry about me a little more."

Carol shakes her head.

"I see you found Khalid. And the Hilltop woman. And…" Avvonaco looks Michonne over curiously.

"Michonne," she says. "From Alexandria. We've met once or twice."

A hint of recognition lights Avonaco's dark eyes. "Rick's woman? Is Rick - "

Michonne takes in a shaky sigh. "- Rick's gone."

Carol fills Avonaco in on what they've learned and what the plan is for returning. Then she nods through the trees up the hill. "Have you been watching the roof from that hill this morning?"

He nods.

"Whatchya see?" Daryl asks.

"There were lots of people on the roof. Men, women, and children. They seemed to be listening to a radio broadcast. Yours I presume. Then they seemed to be arguing. Two women and a man ran quickly inside."

"Parents of the kids, maybe?" Carol speculates. "Eager to see them?"

"The arguing went on," Avonaco continues. "There was a physical fight between two men, but most of the men appeared to take one man's side and pulled the other man away, and then things seemed to settle down. They talked after that, it looked like, more calmly. And then they all went inside together."

"That doesn't sound _too_ bad," Michonne says.

Carol sighs. "I guess we'll know in three weeks."

[*]

For a while, Khalid and Rosita share the road, until they come to the spot where he must go one way to the Kingdom and Rosita must go another way to the Hilltop, and there stop for lunch. They eat from the offering of fresh fruits and vegetables left for the Prophet, which they all took home in their packs.

"Do you think they'll make it, those people?" Rosita asks.

"I don't know," Khalid admits.

"I'm not sure it was right to leave those kids with them."

"They wanted to be with their families," Khalid reasons. "We would have had to take them kicking and screaming."

"The truth is," Rosita admits, "no choice we made there would have sat easy with me. I can see Hannah keeping the secrets of us and the tunnels and the Prophet, but do you think Esau will? He's fragile."

"Esau wanted desperately to be told what to do," Khalid replies. "We told him what to do. I think he'll keep the secret, at least…until the secret doesn't matter anymore."

Rosita packs up after they eat and picks her bike up from the ground. Before she mounts it to head off toward the Hilltop, Khalid asks, "When will I see you again?"

She smiles. "Well…I've been thinking. Daryl really shouldn't be traveling between the Hilltop and the Kingdom alone every week. Safety in numbers, you know." She shrugs. "So I might start coming with him on his weekly trips. Just to keep him safe, of course."

"Of course," Khalid says with a grin. "Purely for safety purposes." He kisses her and watches her pedal off down the road toward the Hilltop.

[*]

Michonne and Daryl arrive back at the Hilltop just before dinner time on their borrowed horse from the Kingdom. Michonne is greeted with surprise. The community replaces the cross on Rick and Michonne's designated grave with a cross that bears only Rick's name. There is renewed mourning, mixed with new joy.

Dinner is pheasant brought down by Liam's arrows. He's done well, but Daryl still has some serious hunting to do to fill that smokehouse before winter. There will be no time for working on his bacon bike if he wants the time to see Carol. He'll need to hunt from sunrise to beyond sunset the rest of the week.

Room arrangements are reassigned. Enid and Liam offer to give up their in-mansion bedroom to the pregnant Michonne, and the carpenters begin to build them a platform tent. A crib, which has been outgrown by another Hilltop child, is moved into Michonne's room for the baby-to be.

At first, Judith is a bit wary of Michonne. It's been a year, almost a fourth of her life, and the little girl has somewhat forgotten the woman. The fact that Michonne looks completely different with her short hair doesn't help matters.

But by Saturday night, Judith has warmed to her stepmother again. That night, when Daryl tucks Judith into bed in Aaron's room, he asks her if she wants to move in with Michonne tomorrow. "Kind of crowded in here."

"But I'd miss Gracie. And I don't want to sleep with a crying baby when my sister is born!"

Aaron chuckles from where he sits on the cot cleaning his boots. "It could be a brother."

"No," Judith says with full assurance. "I want a sister."

Daryl glances at Aaron. "You a'ight with her stayin' here?"

"The more the merrier," Aaron says. "Though when they get older, maybe when Judith's eleven, I think I need my own tent."

Daryl stands up from Judith's bed. Gracie is already asleep on the trundle. "Ya might be sharin' one by then with Jesus."

Aaron flushes and Daryl leaves their room. He finds Michonne on the front porch, in the porch swing, looking out over the crowded Hilltop, which is settling in for the night. The flames of two tiki torches dance on either side of the porch stairs. He eases down beside her and the swing flies back slightly.

"I can't believe how much the Hilltop has grown," she says.

"Mhmhm. Had to take in some from the Sanctuary. Some from Alexandria. Found some. Some found us. 'N we had a baby."

" _We_ had a baby?" She smiles. "You're really at home here aren't you? As much as you're ever at home anywhere, anyway."

"Yeah. Guess so. Just wish Carol was here."

"Have you asked her to move here?"

Daryl runs a hand across his mouth. He's hinted at it, but he hasn't asked. Not directly. He's pretty sure what the answer would be. "She's happy in the Kingdom. Feels like they value her there."

"We all went our own separate ways after the Saviors surrendered, didn't we?"

"Think it started before that," he says quietly. He glances at her, his eyes flitting over her smooth, dark face and the unfamiliar, short hair. She looks both fierce and elegant. "Glad to have ya back. Sorry 'bout Rick. Didn't always see eye to eye…but 's good man. Man of honor."

Michonne chews on her bottom lip and her faces winces. "He was. We were team, Rick and I. Always a team." She looks at him. "Like you and Carol, when you found those tunnels and found me. You work better together than apart." She eases off the swing, her hand on her belly. "I'm going to check in on Judith."

"Just put her to bed. Might be sleepin' already."

"Well, I'm going to check anyway. Can I be the one to tuck her in tomorrow?"

"Mhmh," he murmurs. "Sure. Listen," he says when her hand is on the door. "Someone's got to tell Judith. 'Bout her mama. She been askin' lately."

"Oh."

"Think it should be you."

"She's _just_ starting to accept me as a mother again."

"Didn't say it had to be tomorrow," Daryl says. "But…when it comes up again. Think it should be you."

"And Shane?" Michonne asks. "Should she know about Shane someday?"

"Dunno," Daryl admits. "Dunno. But if ya tell 'er 'bout Shane, hell, don't tell 'er he tried to kill Rick. Just tell 'er he got killed by walkers or some shit."

"And if she finds out from someone else?"

"Who? Only me and Carol and Maggie know about any of that. 'N you. It'll die with us." He shakes his head. "Ain't no help, growin' up knowin' yer daddy was shit. Don't exactly make ya feel like ya got potential. I say either don't tell 'er 'bout Shane at all, or don't tell 'er what he was like. Or tell 'er what he was like, but not what he _became_."

Michonne nods.

"Rick was yers and Judith was his. All this shit…'s up to you."

"I think maybe Judith is yours now," Michonne says, a little affectionately and a little sadly. " _My_ Daryl?"

He smiles. "Love that little girl. Grabbed my heart from day one. Ain't let it go since."

"Well, I appreciate everything you've done for her while I was gone. I can't believe she's already reading a little! She's so young."

"That was all Enid," he admits.

"Maybe, but the confidence she's got now," Michonne says, "that was all you. Loving on her and teaching her to swagger."

"I don't swagger," he insists.

Michonne laughs. "She's quite the little personality." She sighs. "I'm afraid we've lost our connection, though."

"It'll come back. Yer gonna be 'round her more than anyone else now. Enid's busy with Liam. Aaron's got Gracie to worry 'bout. 'N me…gonna be gone two night a week to the Kingdom."

"What are you going to do when the worst of winter comes, and the roads aren't navigable?"

Daryl's avoided thinking about that. He stands from the swing. "Hittin' the hay early," he says. He wants to get up before sunrise so he can get to the Kingdom and Carol. "'Nite, Chonne."

"Goodnight." Michonne opens the door and disappears inside the mansion.

[*]

Daryl bangs on the door of Rosita's RV a third time. "Hold your horses!" she yells. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

Three minutes later, she swings the door open with her pack slung over her left shoulder. "Jesus, Daryl, the sun isn't even up."

"Fifteen miles. Gonna take three hours." More if they have to stop and kill something. "Wanna be there for Carol's good breakfast."

Rosita smiles and shakes her head.

Rosita canters the horse for the first hour, with Daryl riding behind, his hands on his knees, but she has to slow it on some rougher terrain. When they're at more of a walk, Rosita says, "Damn, man, you smell like a junior high school locker room. What did you do? Spray a whole can of Axe body spray on yourself?"

"'S Old Spice." Daryl lifts one arm and sniffs. She's right. He over did it.

"Just use soap. Soap smells best on men. And since when do you have to impress Carol?"

"Don't. Just though I stank this mornin'."

"More than usual?"

"Fuck you."

Rosita laughs.

When they get to the gates of the Kingdom, Dianne is on the fence line, and she comes down to open the gate.

"Thanks for them metal crossbow bolts," Daryl tells her after he and Rosita dismount. "Came in handy."

"Yeah, I heard you snapped one opening a manhole."

"Sorry. Still got the other ones intact to give back."

Dianne shakes her head. "They were a gift. I don't need them back. How's Tara?"

"Fine, I guess." He hasn't spent much time talking to people lately. He's been busy with the hunt, but he got two big bucks in that smokehouse.

Dianne scratches the back of her head. "I kind of said some things maybe I shouldn't have last time I was there. I think maybe she's done with me."

"Mhmhm." This conversation is making Daryl uncomfortable. Rosita has already disappeared with the horse in the direction of the Kingdom's stables.

"But would you take her a letter for me anyway? I at least wanted to say I'm sorry. Maybe we could be friends."

"A'ight. Sure." He starts to walk away when she calls after him. He turns.

"The letter?" She holds out an envelope to him.

"Oh. Didn't know ya'd wrote it already. Ain't leavin' til Tuesday mornin' though."

"Still, it's a day earlier than the pony express."

Daryl tucks the letter inside his jacket and sets off to find Carol. He finds her in the outdoor kitchen, and it looks like she's whipping up an impressive feast. "Hell's all this?" he asks after he kisses her quickly hello.

"Ezekiel's wedding of course."

"'S that _today_?"

"Yes, that's why your falconry lesson has been moved earlier to noon. I thought you knew. Isn't that why you're wearing your good shirt?"

No, he's wearing his good shirt because last time he wore his good shirt she got all hot and bothered. "That's _today_?" he repeats. He doesn't want to go to another wedding.

She cleans her hands on her apron skirt. "Yes, Pookie, that's today. Get your dancing boots ready."


	60. Chapter 60

The seats in the school theater are packed with wedding guests. The Kingdom's peculiar monk performs the ceremony, and he has one advantage over Father Gabriel, Daryl thinks – his wedding homily is shorter. After Ezekiel ties the knot with his Oceanside bride, a formal wedding banquet unfolds in the school cafeteria. The communal meals are moving inside where it's warmer now that December has arrived.

One tiresome speech follows another. Every time Daryl thinks they're over, another one comes along. At last they're freed from the banquet hall and migrate over to the big school gym for dancing and after-dinner drinks. The bleachers have been pushed back and the king and his bride take the floor for their first dance.

Carol's wearing a dress, and Daryl can't stop looking at her. It's nothing particularly fancy or risqué – just a dark green, short-sleeve dress that falls to below her knees, though the material is shiny. He keeps putting a hand on the small of her back to feel it, curious how it can shine like that. The dress hugs her ass perfectly and is just barely low cut enough to offer a teasing hint of cleavage – which is more maddening than if it were low-cut.

She looks way from the dance floor where Ezekiel and Tyra are slow dancing and notices him noticing her. "Hey there," she says.

Daryl flushes at having been caught staring, but why he flushes he doesn't know. She's _his_ girl now. He's _allowed_ to look, right?

"What?" she asks expectantly, as if she thinks he wants to say something.

Well, he doesn't want to say something, but he supposes he better. "Nothin'. Just…ya look…" Daryl's not very good with compliments. "Real pretty."

She smiles that smile of hers, the one that sends inexplicable waves of affection tossing through his chest. "Not ridiculous?"

"Nah." The dress suits her, not like that getup she put on to blend in in Alexandria. The dress doesn't suit the _apocalypse_ , maybe, but it suits _her_.

"Good. I found the dress on a supply run ten months ago. I was just going to use the material for patches when I got back, but I couldn't help but try it on first. It fit so well."

"Mhmh. Sure does." She looks pretty and classy but somehow natural at the same time, comfortable in her own skin.

"I've never had an excuse to wear it before now. I thought of bringing it to Liam's wedding, but I couldn't very well ride to the Hilltop in it. You don't think it's silly?"

He barely hears the question because his eyes are all over her body. He does hear her light laugh, though, and feels her lace her fingers through his. "Floor's open to everyone now. Let's dance."

When they're cheek to cheek on the dance floor, and she's pressed against him, Daryl can feel his dick twitching, and he's terrified he's going to get an obvious erection. It's like junior high school all over again, when he had to walk around between classes with a binder in front of his pants because of that cheerleader who sat to the front right of him in 8th grade English. She kept violating the dress code with her low-cut shirts and getting sent to the principal's.

Carol breathes in and says, "You smell nice. Like baby powder."

"'S Old Spice."

She chuckles. "Really? No. I think it's the soap you used when you washed up before dinner. The woman who makes it puts a scent in it. Baby powder and smoke…though the smoke's all you."

Carol settles in against him again, and he lets himself stop worrying about his half-formed erection for now. He savors the feel of her in his arms and the sensation of her pert breasts pressed against his chest. By the time the music stops, he wants to drag her back to the trailer, but he's afraid to move away from her for fear the now well-formed bulge in his pants will become obvious, so when she steps away, he pulls her back and mutters, "One more dance."

When the violin and flute and other live instruments begin again, she drapes her arms around his neck and sways with him. "Is that a gun in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Stop."

"The thing is, it really could be a gun."

"Don't carry there," he mutters. "'N Don't get too close. Tryin' to make it go away."

That was a terrible request to make, apparently, because she clearly takes it as a challenge, and soon her waist is pressed against his, and her fingers are toying with the hair at the back of his head while they sway, and then she rakes her fingertips over his ears. When she plays with his earlobe, he has to pull back.

"I guess we're leaving room for the Holy Spirit now?" she aks.

"'S with you 'n the Holy Spirit?" She said something about that at Enid's wedding, too.

"It's just something my mom used to say when I went to school dances. Leave enough room for the Holy Spirit. It's not like anyone was dancing that close anyway. Everyone was just jumping up and down most of the time." She laughs. "We _thought_ it was dancing."

She has a beautiful laugh, and it makes her blue eyes twinkle, and the dress makes them twinkle even more, and she looks so goddamn beautiful and happy that his heart almost feels like it's forgotten to beat. It hits him all of the sudden, like a cold-palmed slap across the face, that he's in love with this woman. Not just that he _loves_ her - because he knew that already, but that he's _in love_ with her.

Daryl doesn't want to let go, but when the music stops, she steps away. She tugs down the tail of his dark, charcoal, button-down shirt when she does, subtly covering his half-erection, and smiles.

The flacon man swoops in and asks Carol for the next dance, half nodding to Daryl and adding, "If you don't mind, that is."

"Nah. Don't mind." He needs a chance to cool down anyway.

Still, when they start dancing, Daryl keeps a watchful eye on them from his spot along the far sideline of the gym, where he stands nursing a pint of mead. He makes sure that falcon man's hands don't go anywhere they shouldn't be going.

"Good work finding Khalid and Rosita."

Daryl turns to see that Roland, holding a glass of port wine, has come to stand on the edge of the gym beside him.

"Mhmhm."

Jerry and Nabila dance out to the edge of the gym and back, and then Khalid and Rosita whirl past them, Rosita telling Khalid he's a _goof_ after he twirls her. Next Henry and Elizabeth come somewhat near and then circle back again. The boy is a little less stiff and uncomfortable than he was at Liam's wedding, but he's still dancing like a 9th grader. Of course, he would be a 9th grader in the old world. He looks older, somehow, though. Maybe he's grown an inch in the past week.

Roland sips from his wine. "I've been thinking…I was wrong to want to keep the knowledge of the Temple from the Hilltop and Oceanside."

"What?"

"I assume Carol told you I wanted to initially."

"Nah."

"Oh, well, I did. But when our communities worked together…when you and Carol went after Khalid and Rosita…it all worked out in the end."

"Mhmhm." Daryl's eyes flit over Carol's smiling face as she talks to the falcon man.

"And Oceanside never told us about that supply cache they found last spring. If they had, we could have helped them to empty it before it got flooded, but they didn't want to share, and half the supplies ended up just being lost."

This is the first Daryl is hearing about this supply cache Oceanside found. Not that the Hilltop told the Kingdom about the working batteries they found in that root cellar, at least…not until Carol asked him about where he got his.

"I think we all might be able to trust one another a little more if we could hash things out together," Roland continues. "Part of what made me reluctant to tell the other communities about the Temple is I knew that there wouldn't have really been any further communication between the Councils after that, no real discussion to speak of. Everyone would have ended up doing their own thing, whatever was right in their own eyes. At least, it seems that's what usually happens. But if the _Alliance_ had a Council…"

Daryl glances at him. "Hell ya mean?"

"A Unified Council consisting of three representatives from each community. A Council of nine. They could meet once a month, at a different community each month, to discuss common concerns – trade, mutual defense, the placement of refugees our scouts find, marriages between communities, that sort of thing. It would be more organized than what we have now, which is just leaders sending each other letters."

"'N I take it ya think ya'd be on this Council?"

"The representatives would be elected by the communities. Or appointed by their Councils. Or appointed by their leaders. However each community saw fit to do it. I don't know if I would get elected or appointed or not. Of course Ezekiel would be on it, Maggie, and Cyndie. The other six…" He shrugs. "Who knows."

"Rick tried somethin' like that after the Saviors and 'fore the Whisperers. Didn't work too well. People don't take kindly to other communities tellin' 'em what to do." _Daryl_ doesn't take kindly to it.

"But that was then," Roland reasons. "This is now. And what Rick did…it was different. Rick put his operatives in each of the communities. That's the part people didn't take kindly to. The Alliance Council wouldn't try to tell communities what they should do inside the gates of their own communities – it would _only_ make joint decisions on matters of _joint_ concern." Roland shrugs, sips, and says, "Carol's in favor of the idea. I floated it at our last Council meeting, and she thought it would be useful."

"Mhmhm. Well, that don't mean I'm automatically gonna be for it. Carol don't tell me what to think."

"I wasn't suggesting she did. I just assumed you would respect her opinion more than mine."

Daryl watches Carol leave the dance floor as the music stops and pluck up a glass of water. Khalid offers to dance with her now, and she shoots her water and goes out onto the dance floor with him. "But I'll think 'bout it," he tells Roland. "'N talk to Carol 'bout it."

"And Maggie? You'll talk to Maggie about it? Get her opinion?"

"A'ight."

"How is she? Did she send you with a letter for me?"

Daryl shakes his head, notices Roland's disappointed face, and feels strangely sorry for the man.

"Ah. Well," Roland mutters. "I suspected that wasn't actually going to go anywhere." He sighs, moves away from Daryl, and asks Dianne to dance.

Khalid twirls Carol by, calling to Daryl, "See how it's done, Romeo?"

[*]

Daryl won't let Carol take her dress off when they get back to the trailer, but once he has her lying half on and half off the bed, he slides her panties to the floor. She makes him keep his shirt on, too, though she unbuttons it to his naval to let her hands roam his chest. His pants never make it past his knees. The sex is quick and hungry, at least the first round of it. They strip down afterward, light the oil lamp, crawl into bed, and spend more time exploring and caressing and kissing each other, until he's ready to go again, and this time it's much slower and the climax is gentler.

Carol snuggles in afterward. "You're like a twenty-year old."

"Hmm? How so?"

"Your refractory period is impressive."

"'M what?"

"You can still go twice in under forty minutes."

He smiles. "Mhmh. Well…" He kisses her shoulder. "'S 'cause I got ya to go with. 'N I ain't had sex since almost a year 'fore everything collapsed. Mean, 'til you. Been savin' it up."

"Who'd you last have sex with?"

"Farrah Fawcett."

She chuckles. "No. Really."

"Just some woman Merle picked up at a bar."

"Merle picked her up, but you had sex with her?" Carol asks.

"He picked two up 'cause they's friends or sisters or somethin'. Pawned the one he didn't want off on me. Had to entertain."

" _Had_ to, huh?"

He shrugs.

"I'm having trouble imagining Merle as a Casanova who could just pick multiple women up in bars."

"Ain't like they were classy. He had drugs. Some women like drugs. 'N some women like jerks. 'S the only reason I ever got any."

She wraps a leg around his and shift her head until it's settled on his shoulder. "I don't know about that. You're not a jerk now and you're getting some."

"Gettin' the best I ever got," he murmurs. "Maybe should of stopped bein' a jerk sooner."

"I'm guessing you were never _actually_ that much of a jerk."

He sighs. "Ya didn't know be back when. Lucky I stayed out of jail."

"Did you ever hurt anyone who didn't deserve it?"

"Stole shit a few times in my life. Ain't no one deserves to have their shit stolen. Well, almost no one. Ain't never physically hurt no one, though, less it was a fight. 'N then, everyone's to blame. Ain't like I ever fought someone who didn't wanna fight. Or who wasn't pickin' on some kid half his age."

"You bullied the bullies in school?"

"Mhmhm. Sometimes."

"See. You were a good kid." She kisses his cheek. "How's your bacon bike coming along?"

"Ain't had no time to work on it. Gotta hunt late if'n I'm gonna be here two days, 'n then 'm exhausted."

Carol's quiet for a while, and then she lifts her head. "Tell you what. After I teach my two math classes tomorrow morning, why don't we go back to the Hilltop _together_ and work on your bike? After all, you weren't planning to hunt tomorrow. You were going to be here. So you'd have the day to work on it. And then I can spend the night there."

"Yeah? You'd do that?"

Her eyes go up like she's doing calculations on her head. "I'll need to cancel my afternoon knife class, and trade cooking duties, and get a substitute for my Tuesday morning math classes because I won't be back in time, but…yeah." She looks back at him again. "We can have breakfast together Tuesday morning, and then when you head out to hunt, I'll come back here."

He grins. "I like workin' on my bike with ya."

"I like it, too."

"Maggie might nag, though, if'n she sees me _there_ and 'm just dickin' 'round and I ain't huntin'. 'S one thing when I ain't there for her to see I ain't doin' shit. Be another for her to _see_ it."

"Let her nag. How many deer did you get this week?"

"Only two."

"So twice as much as anyone else."

He smiles. "One was a big ass buck, too." He gives her a half hug, and when she settles her head on his shoulder again, he says, "Roland tried to sell me on his Council Alliance idea at the reception."

"And you're not buying?"

"Somethin' like that…starts out one thing. Becomes another. Takes on power. 'N we're doin' just fine tradin' without it."

"We're all growing, Daryl, and we need better communication between our communities. More discussion and agreement. It's not just things like this Temple, but what about the Capitol Michonne discovered? We don't think they know about us, but it's still a reminder that one day, someday, we're probably going to need common defense again. Maybe we should even have an Alliance Army that trains together on occasion, in case anyone does attack one of us."

"Dunno. Don't like bein' told what to do by people who ain't livin' behind my gates."

"Well, there would be equal representation on the Alliance Council," Carol reasons.

"Yeah, so? It'd be six against three, if Kingdom and Oceanside wanted somethin' the Hilltop didn't."

"How likely is that?" Carol asks. "We'll be working toward our _mutual_ interests. What would Oceanside and the Kingdom gang up on the Hilltop over?"

"Dunno. Just dunno. Say y'all two wanna go war with someone, 'n we don't – what's that mean? We _got_ to go?"

"We've been to war together _twice_ now," she says. "You didn't oppose either of those."

"Yeah, but….ain't like some Super Council decided we was gonna do it. Just kind of…happened."

"Exactly. It just kind of happened, in a disorganized way," Carol reminds him. "In an uncoordinated way. Imagine how much quicker we could have ended both of those conflicts with more careful, more cooperative planning."

"Guess ya might be right." Daryl sighs. "Just…things seemed so much simpler when it was just us. Just the small band of us…survivin' together. Sounds crazy, maybe, but…miss that sometimes."

Carol props her head on her hand and strokes his cheek with the back of her fingertips. "I miss that sometimes, too. Or maybe I just miss the people we've lost. Or maybe I just miss having you in the same camp every day. But we didn't have peace back then, Daryl. We've never had a stretch of peace like this, _ever_. What we have now is bigger and better, and it's going to _stand_. It's not going to topple. Because together, we're too big and too strong for _anyone_ to topple us." She leans and kisses him softly. "Aren't we?"

"Mhmhm." Daryl reaches over her, turns off the oil lamp, and draws her close against him again. "Together."


	61. Chapter 61

Rosita awakes to a knocking on Khalid's trailer door. "It's so early!" she whines.

"Go back to sleep." Khalid slides out of bed in only his boxers. There are fresh scratches on his back from their lovemaking last night.

When Khalid opens the door, Rosita can hear Daryl's gravelly voice: "Tell 'Sita 'm goin' back in three hours 'stead of tomorrow."

"Why?" Rosita shouts from the bed. She throws back the blanket and pads her way over, wearing nothing but Khalid's t-shirt and a pair of panties. She slides an arm around Khalid's waist and sleepily rests her head on his shoulder. "You said we were going back _tomorrow_."

"Change of plans. Carol and me…gonna work on my bike."

"Yeah, well, _I'm_ staying. Khalid and I are going to work on…some… _things_."

Khalid chuckles. "I'll see her home on my horse tomorrow. I need to do a little scouting anyway."

"A'ight, just lettin' ya know."

When Daryl's gone, Khalid turns and kisses Rosita. "You look exceptionally sexy in my shirt."

"Yeah? You want me to leave it on while you fuck me?"

He backs her against his kitchen table, but later they crawl naked into bed. Rostia runs her fingers through the dark hair on his chest as she lies on her side facing him. "This bed's too small. You need a bigger one if I'm going to be spending time here. But you'll have to move that filing cabinet to the other end of the trailer to fit it."

"Already rearranging my furniture?" Khalid smirks. "I really _do_ have a girlfriend now."

Her hand stills against his chest "Why did you say it?"

"Say what?"

"That you love me?"

"Because…" His dark eyes narrow in confusion. "I love you."

"But _why_?"

"Why _not_?"

She shrugs. "I just don't think I'm the kind of girl a guy falls in love with. I'm the kind of girl he fucks until the girl he loves finally comes along."

"Says who?" Khalid asks.

"Says experience."

"Ah well, in my experience, experience is a sullen wench. You know who's a beautiful maiden, though? _Hope_. So I'm going to follow her, and just let experience go screw herself."

Rosita laughs, kisses him, and says, "You're the strangest person I've ever met."

"Really? Have I ever introduced you to Ezekiel?"

"Move over and give me some room," she orders.

"Are we going back to sleep?"

"Unless you have other plans."

"I do have to work eventually on that well we're digging. But…not right now." He slides with his back to the trailer wall, and she rolls over and pushes her back against him. With Khalid's arm around her, Rosita drifts back to sleep.

[*]

While Daryl's standing outside the trailer smoking and waiting for Carol to finish up her math lessons, he sees Henry heading up the stairs to his own trailer with his staff. "Hey," Henry calls over. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Me?" Daryl points to himself with his cigarette.

"Yeah."

Surprised, and a little wary about what Henry wants to talk about, Daryl makes his way over to the boy's trailer, taking his last two puffs. He grinds the cigarette out on the gravel at the bottom of the stairs, and then clomps up them to follow Henry inside. "Ain't ya s'posed to be in math class?"

"I went earlier. She's teaching the 10-and-unders now." Henry leans his staff against the wall.

The place is a bit of a mess – clothes strewn over chairs and on the floor, and dirty breakfast dishes still on the table. Daryl's not sure if that's because of Henry or his two roommates or all three of them together. It looks almost as bad as that trailer he and Merle once shared for ten months.

As Henry picks up some clothes from off the floor and tosses them in a laundry basket, he says, "So…Christmas is coming up. And I was wondering…what do you give a girl when you _want_ her to be your girlfriend but you don't want her to _think_ you _already_ think she's your girlfriend?"

 _Shit_. Daryl hadn't thought about Christmas at all. Is he supposed to give _Carol_ a Christmas present? "Uh…just get her some jewelry or some shit." Carol's not going to want jewelry, though. What _would_ she want?

"Yeah? That's not going to make Elizabeth think I think she's my girlfriend?"

"Hell, so what if it does? If she takes it, then maybe she thinks so, too."

Henry clears the dishes from the table and sticks them in a plastic bin full of water on a wooden counter. "Oh. Okay."

Daryl scratches his cheek. "So…uh…what do ya think I should get Carol for Christmas?"

"I thought you knew all this stuff."

"I don't know shit, kid."

"Something you make," Henry tells him. "With your hands. That's what I gave her last year and she loved it."

"Whatchya make 'er?"

"An ashtray."

Daryl's seen that, he thinks, in the trailer. It's made from clay and painted with red and blue stripes. But Carol doesn't smoke, not normally, and she doesn't let him smoke _inside_ the trailer anyway. That ashtray has clearly never been used. "Hell she need an ashtray for?"

Henry shrugs. "I don't know, but she loved it." Henry goes over to the couch and picks up some food wrappers that are wedged between the cushions and tosses them in the trash. "I'm never going to be able to invite Elizabeth in here."

"Yeah, 'specailly not with that Playboy on the coffee table."

Henry flushes. "That's _not_ mine."

"Mhmhm. Think Carol would want me to tell ya that shit ain't realistic, 'n ya need to respect women, and blah blah blah."

Henry laughs. He picks up the magazine and shoves it under the mattresses on top of one of the two sets of bunk beds.

When Daryl mounts Carol's horse behind her a few minutes later to head to the Hilltop, he's still wondering what to make her for Christmas.

[*]

As soon as Daryl gets back to the Hilltop, he gives Tara her letter from Dianne and then goes to look for Maggie while Carol trails along. He finds her, not surprisingly, in her office working at her desk. It was either there or the greenhouse or the barns.

Maggie looks up from her files. "Hey, Carol. What are you doing here?"

"We decided to spend our second day at the Hilltop. I'm going to help Daryl work on his bike."

"You two _could_ go hunting together." She smiles. "I bet that would be romantic."

"Workin' on my bike today," Daryl grunts. "'S my day off. Get _two_ days off a week now. We agreed."

"I know. It's my day off, too, but…" She shuts the folder she's looking at. "I just wanted to review the new inventory Aaron put together. He's been a huge help."

"Where's Glenn, Jr.?" Carol asks.

"Playing with Judith. Michonne's watching them both."

Daryl steps forward and drops an envelope on her desk. "'S from Roland. He wants to know what ya think 'bout startin' an Alliance Council."

"An Alliance Council?"

Carol sits down in the empty chair across from Maggie, which Daryl stands behind, and tells Maggie what the Kingdom's Council has been discussing. She says she thinks it would be a good idea herself.

"What do you think?" Maggie asks Daryl.

"Dunno. Think maybe it makes sense, but…worries me, too. Could grow. Become like a government."

"Well," Maggie reasons, "if we have a written charter of some kind, limit its role and powers…" She looks at Carol. "Our Council will talk about it at our next meeting, and then I'll send Ezekiel my response through pony express."

"Ezekiel?" Carol asks. "Roland wrote you the letter."

"But Ezekiel's on board with it?"

Carol nods.

"Then I'd rather communicate the details through him."

"Avoiding Roland?" Carol asks.

"I don't want to give him the idea I'm interested in a romantic relationship. It was…nice. He's a decent man. I like him well enough. He's even a good kisser. He's just not _Glenn_. It might be fun for a while, to let off some steam, but I don't see myself ever settling down with someone else. And Roland's clearly looking for something long-term. He's just the long-term type. So it's better he try to find that with someone else now than waste any more time with me."

"Well, maybe write and tell him that directly," Carol says. "Instead of leaving him to wonder what he did wrong. Because I think he really does like you."

Maggie drums her fingers on the desktop.

"You can't just ignore him and hope he goes away," Carol says. "He's not that type either."

Maggie sighs. "Fine. I'll write him."

After Carol and Daryl leave the study, they pause in the open frame of the library because they spy Glenn, Jr. and Judith in there playing Candy Land with Michonne.

Michonne give Daryl a _help me!_ look and says, "Judith _really_ loves this game. We played it _seven_ times while you were gone."

"'M _really_ glad yer back," Daryl tells her with a smirk.

Michonne's haggard look turns into a smile when Judith says, "Mommy, it's your turn now!"

"Told ya," Daryl says, and he and Carol head outside.

"What did you tell her?" Carol asks.

"That Little Ass Kicker would warm up to 'er again. Just…been awhile since she's seen 'er, ya know? Ready to build a bike?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Carol says as they clomp down the porch stairs and head toward his tent.

The weather is cool but the late afternoon sun is high, and Carol unbuttons her wool-lined jean jacket and drapes it on the platform of his tent when they get there.

She opens the tool box for him while he pulls some tires out from under the platform and brings them over to the frame. He lets them drop to the ground and flips the bike frame on its seat.

"How is Michonne doing?" Carol asks. "I mean….after all that time in captivity? Is she stable?"

"Seems fine. Dunno how she did it. Hell, I 'bout went mad in a few days in Negan's cell. But she had real food. Clean clothes. Light. Paper to write on. A bathroom. Running water. No damn song playin' over 'n over." He reaches his hand back. "Wrench."

Carol roots around for the tool and hands it to him and admires him from behind as he squats down and gets to work.


	62. Chapter 62

"Phillip's head or flat?" Carol asks.

"Flat."

She hands the screwdriver to Daryl. He's done with the frame of his bike now and has moved onto the engine, which is slapped up on a makeshift wooden workbench – or at least- parts of it are. They've been at this three hours now, and Carol's getting hungry and wondering when it's dinner time at the Hilltop. Her contribution has been fairly limited. She hands him tools and occasionally holds something in place when he asks her to, and she limits herself to raising her eyebrow when something doesn't work out the way he wants and he spews profanities like a geyser.

But even though she feels highly unskilled in her role as mechanic's assistant, she knows Daryl likes having her help, or, at least, having her _present_ while he works. Back when she was still naïve enough to think she could improve an abusive marriage by becoming a better wife, she used to check out lots of marriage books from the library. One that comes to her mind now is _The Five Love Languages_. Daryl's love language is not "physical touch" – though he's definitely become more affectionate since she's known him. Nor does she think he gives a damn about "receiving gifts." But she thinks one of his love languages must be "quality time," which is why she's here, handing him tools.

"Goddamn piece of shit motherfucking won't-fit goddamnit!" Daryl chucks a bolt and it clangs off of the metal barrel that holds a warming bonfire. He notices Carol watching him. "Sorry."

"You'd save a lot of time if you didn't apologize every time you swore." She extends him a new bolt, one that isn't stripped.

He grunts and takes it. "Had a cousin. Billy. Used to tell me should never swear in front of a lady. Told 'em he was full of shit and I ain't never met a _lady_ anyhow." He glances back at her. "Sorry for swearin'."

She smiles. This is the other thing she likes about working with him - besides the fact that it probably makes him feel loved and he's sexy when he's tinkering – he _talks_ to her when he's working, much more than he's willing to talk when his hands aren't busy. "Cousin through your…"

"- 'M mama's sister. More like an uncle really 'cause m' mama was the baby of the family 'n her sister was twenty years older. He was thirty when I's a kid."

"Was he around much when you were growing up?"

"In the summers. School teacher in Atlanta, but he'd come spend the summers in a cabin he had 'bout a mile from us. Hunted, brought back meat for the school year. Rich asshole."

"A rich school teacher?" Carol asks doubtfully.

"Compared to everyone else up in them hills? Hell ya. Had 'n apartment in the city _and_ a cabin in the woods. 'Course, cabin didn't have electricity or runnin' water. Merle was s'posed to 'watch' it durin' the school year, but mostly he just used it to throw parties and screw his girlfriends." Daryl hisses because he's pinched his thumb, and he sucks the tip of it.

"Careful," Carol says instinctively. "Did you like him, your cousin?"

"Yeah. Got me my first crossbow. Taught me to hunt with it."

Carol always wondered how he learned. "Did you…" It's a sensitive question and maybe she shouldn't ask it, but he's so busy working she thinks maybe it won't bother him. "Did you ever tell him about your father hurting you?"

He glances at her, a scowl on his face, and goes back to work. She's prepared to let it slide without an answer when he says, "Nah. No. Think I was afraid he wouldn't do nothin' if I had. How 'bout you?"

"How about me what?" Carol asks.

"Ya ever tell anyone 'bout Ed?"

She wasn't expecting a return of the question. "No," she admits quietly. "I didn't either. I might have early on, but then…eventually…I didn't have anyone to tell. He isolated me from all of my friends and family." She sighs. "I _let_ myself be isolated."

He glances at her again, a hint of worry in his eyes, and then returns to work.

It's too heavy a topic they've drifted to, so she asks, "What was your favorite television show in the old world?"

"When?" he ask. "Ya mean right 'fore the collapse?"

"Yeah."

"Jeopardy."

Carol blinks. "The game show?"

"Mhmhm. Merle 'n I used to watch it. Make fun of the dumbasses when they missed a question."

Carol laughs. "And did you play along?"

"Yeah, 'tween the two of us, we usually came in second."

"That was not at all the answer I was expecting."

"Hell were ya expecting? Baywatch?"

"That's old," she says. "That wasn't still on when the world collapsed."

"Yeah, well, I still watched it in reruns."

"For the riveting drama, I presume?"

He smiles slightly. "Mhmhm. 'Course."

"Why would you watch that when there was Internet porn?"

"First, didn't have Internet. Second …" He shrugs. "Dunno. Women's sexier when they leave a little somethin' to the imagination."

"Is that so?"

His eyes flit up and down her jeans and long-sleeve, thick tan canvass shirt and a smile toys at the corners of his mouth. "Yeah."

[*]

Daryl loves it when Carol straddles him like this and he can see her breasts as she takes her pleasure from him. She's close now, at least he hopes she is, because he's about to lose it. He tries to think of the parts of the engine he's almost finished constructing, but then he just thinks of Carol draped over the bike he's built instead.

"Oh fuck," he mutters, and grips her hips, and thrusts up. "C'mon, girl. Cum for me."

She does, in a long, low moan ending in his name, and collapses on top of him. He rolls her onto her back and finishes in two explosive strokes. Daryl lies spent on top of her until she nudges him, and then slides off and kisses her cheek. "Damn," he murmurs, and she giggles, that girlish giggle that sends a wave of affection through him.

She urges him onto his back and snuggles against him. For a while he's hot from the lovemaking, but he's begun to feel the cool at about the time she pulls up the sheet and thick wool blanket over them. "What do you do in February? It must be freezing."

"We got space heaters for most people in the tents. Run off of solar power batteries. Found 'em on that Bass Pro Run last year. Just ain't enough for everyone."

"So _you_ go without?" she asks.

"Don't bother me none. Wear m' long johns. Got me a 10-degree sleepin' bag. "

"You're a good man, Daryl."

He wraps her up in his arms. "Ya cold?"

"No, I'm fine now with the blanket."

He loves this - his woman, in his arms, in his bed, beneath his tent. "Thanks for comin'."

"Well," she teases, "it was kind of hard not to with you thrusting like that."

"Meant thanks for comin' here. Workin' on m' bike with me."

She kisses the bare flesh where his neck dips. "I had fun. I'm going to have even more fun testing it next Monday when your done with that engine and Eugene's done refining that bacon grease."

"Yeah? Yer comin' here next Monday?"

"Sure. After you come on Sunday for your lesson. You think I'm going to do all that work helping you build it and not get to see it tested?" He grins. At the other end of the Hilltop, the chapel bell tolls. "God, I hope that's your dinner bell," Carol says, and as if in echo of her hope, her stomach growls.

[*]

When Carol returns to the Kingdom Tuesday, she delivers a letter from Dianne to Tara and one from Maggie to Roland. She finds Roland repairing a broken door to one of the trailers, and his eyes brighten when she extends the letter. "I wouldn't get your hopes up," she says. "I don't think it's good news. I mean…she agrees with the idea for the Alliance Council, but I'm not sure the personal news is good."

He slides the letter inside his workman's coat. "Ah, well, thanks for the heads up. Can't say you didn't warn me at the start."

"You should really join the trade team to Oceanside."

"Maybe I will."

[*]

On Wednesday morning, when the pony express comes through the Hilltop, Daryl eagerly takes his letter to his tent.

 _Dear Daryl,_

 _I miss you already. I can't wait to watch you test that bike._

 _Oceanside has agreed to the Alliance Council. It probably doesn't hurt that one of theirs is now married to Ezekiel. Now it's a matter of choosing representatives. The Kingdom already has. Ezekiel will of course attend the Alliance Council meetings, along with Roland and Khalid. Khalid isn't on the Advisory Council, but Ezekiel wanted him on the Alliance Council because he thinks he's a good diplomat and considers him to have an "in" with the Hilltop because of Rosita. Of course, so do I._

Here she draws a smiley face.

 _I admit I was a little surprised Ezekiel didn't appoint me, but he says he wants me in charge back home when he has to leave for these meetings, and his choices are good. Roland had the idea for the Council in the first place, and he can probably help charm Oceanside to our side when we disagree. Khalid is intelligent, generally well liked, and, as a sometimes scout, familiar with the areas that surround us all._

 _The first meeting will be after you and I check on the Temple, so that information can be reported and discussed at the meeting. I suppose Maggie will want you on the Alliance Council?_

 _Jerry has cut down a huge Christmas tree from the forest and brought it into the main hallway of the school, and the kids will be decorating it tonight. I'd have waited until a week before Christmas. It's a little early. I suspect a third of the needles will drop by Christmas day, and we'll have a Charlie Brown tree. I used to love to watch that cartoon with Sophia every Christmas. That and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas._

 _I'm looking forward to our Sunday together at the Kingdom, and our Monday at the Hilltop._

 _Love,_

 _Carol_

[*]

On Wednesday evening, when the pony express comes back through the Kingdom on its return to Oceanside, Carol curls up on the couch with her letter from Daryl:

 _Dear Carol,_

 _I'm not on the Alliance Council. Maggie doesn't think I'm much of a diplomat. Wonder why?_

Carol giggles.

 _Gonna be Maggie, Aaron, and Rosita._

 _Aaron's been helping her a lot. And he's spent a lot of time at Oceanside. They know him and trust him._

 _Rosita's got an in with the Kingdom becuase of Khalid. Maggie figures that covers both bases._

 _Miss you, too._

 _Got my engine almost done._

 _Eugeen's been heating the graese. Got to liquify it. Then filter._

 _Gonna take you for the ride of your life._

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Daryl_

Carol flips to the second page, eagerly awaiting her drawing. There's a stick figure, with two crudely drawn breasts, and the words – _I like your tits. And the rest of you 2._

Carol shakes her head, rolls her eyes, and tries – unsuccessfully – not to laugh.


	63. Chapter 63

On Thursday, when Daryl drops a deer at Sharon's butcher table, she says, "So, Dr. Phil, I finally made my move on Gabe like you advised." Daryl does not recall advising any such thing. "And he put me off. Do you have a Plan B?"

"Uh…'S always Eugene."

"Believe it or not, Eugene's hooked up with that woman Jesus found living in the Air & Space Museum three months ago." The woman, Janice, was a museum docent working after hours who locked all the doors when things went bad and lived for the next several years off of the cafeteria food – bottled water, canned sodas, juices, canned foods – anything that didn't spoil.

"No shit?" Daryl asks.

"It's a good match when you think about it. She never talks and he never stops talking." Janice is a mute, but whether she was born that way or became that way after the trauma of living alone for so many years, no one knows. She does communicate by writing, but not usually in any depth.

"Huh. Guess there's someone for everyone."

"Thanks," Sharon says with a self-deprecating laugh and draws out her cleaver.

"Hey," Daryl says sympathetically, "Maggie ain't interested in Roland no more. 'N he's gonna be on that Alliance Council. First meetin's gonna be here in ten days. So...he'll be here."

Sharon smiles. "Thanks, but if the blind priest isn't interested in me, I _seriously_ doubt Cary Grant will be." Her cleaver comes down hard on the table, with a loud smack, and Daryl winces.

[*]

Friday and Saturday pass quickly as Daryl stays busy with hunting, but the smokehouse is filling with meat. As he stands outside it now, surveying his handiwork with a feeling of pride, the smell of thick smoke teasing his nostrils, Maggie walks up beside him and peeks inside.

"Good work," she says. "Just one more week of serious hunting, and we'll be set for the winter, even if you _can't_ catch anything in January or February."

"'Bout that…" Daryl swings the smokehouse door shut. "Been thinkin'. I'll keep huntin' 'til New Year's. But 'fore the first big snows come and the roads ain't passable…thinkin' maybe I'd go stay with Carol in the Kingdom. Her trailer's warmer 'n my tent. Stay there, come back in spring, start huntin' for the Hilltop again. Visit 'er on weekends."

"Daryl - "

"- Ain't gonna be huntin' much in winter anyhow. Ya don't need me here."

"You're important to the Hilltop, and not just for hunting. You're on the Council. I'd need to hold a special election and get a temporary substitute for those eight weeks your gone."

"'N do it."

"After someone else fills your spot for that long…I can't _guarantee_ you'll win again in the general election when it rolls around in spring."

"Understand that," Daryl says. "Take my chances."

"And then there's Judith – "

"- Judith's got her mama now. Got Enid, Got Aaron. Got _everyone_. 'S gonna miss me, 'n I'll miss her, but I'll only be gone seven or eight weeks. 'N then, maybe in fall, Carol'll come stay with me here. Trap for us. Help me fill that smokehouse again." He hasn't talked to Carol about this yet, but he doesn't like the idea of a long winter without her, and he's sure she'll say yes to him staying in the Kingdom. He's not as sure she'll say yes to a fall at the Hilltop, but he sure hopes so.

Maggie sighs. "You know, this is part of the reason I didn't appoint you to the Alliance Council. It's probably why Ezekiel didn't appoint Carol, too. Neither of us knows how long you'll be with us, or where you'll end up. You can't represent a community you're not _in._ "

"Then why'd ya appoint 'Sita? She's with Khalid."

"Yeah, but she's not serious about him, is she?"

"Uh..." Daryl chuckles. "Think maybe she might be."

"Shit," Maggie mutters.

"Listen, 'm loyal to the Hilltop. These are m' people. Just gonna be gone two months. Like a winter vacation."

"For now," Maggie mutters. She shakes her head and then looks at him. "I'm happy for you, Daryl, I _am_. You two have found something good. I miss that. So much."

"'N why ya slap Roland down?"

"Because I'm not feeling it. I don't know why. I'm just not. And he deserves to find someone who really wants to be with him, the way you want to be with Carol, the way I wanted to be with Glenn. I'm not writing off the possibility of moving on some day…It's just not going to be with Roland. But who knows, maybe my Romeo will show up at the Hilltop one day and try to steal our cabbage."

[*]

Sunday, at the Kingdom, Daryl gets to hunt with the falcon for the first time. While they're in the forest, Henry asks him, "So, did you decide what to make Carol for Christmas yet?"

"Workin' on it," Daryl mutters. The truth is, he forgot about making her a gift until just now.

The students come back with two large rabbits. "Who got them?" Carol asks, and when Daryl grins a little, she says, "I thought so."

"Only got one," he clarifies. "Henry got the other one."

Carol beams at Henry with a mother's pride.

"Don't worry," Henry assures her. "I'm still paying attention to my studies. But I'll be so glad when I graduate this spring and can train with the knights and hunt more often."

The Sunday communal dinner is a bustling affair inside the cafeteria. Daryl notices Cassandra on her husband Avocado's lap, an arm draped around his shoulders, teasing him with kisses on his ear and feeding him small bits of food. "Guess it worked," he murmurs to Carol.

"Him making her worry?" Carol asks. "Yeah. For a while anyhow."

That night, he and Carol make playful love in her bed in her trailer, and when they're settled into a comfortable, spooned, sleeping position, Daryl tells her about his plan to stay with her for the winter, "If'n ya want me to."

Carol rolls over and practically bounces in the bed. She kisses him hard on the lips and asks, " _If_ I want you to? _Of course_ I want you to!"

Daryl's eyes flit down and away from hers. "Was wonderin'…Since 'm stayin' the winter here…maybe you'd wanna stay the fall at the Hilltop? 'N my tent? With me? Could help me hunt. Or just do yer traps. Small game."

She's quiet long enough that he's pretty sure the answer's going to be no. But quietly she says, "Let me talk to Ezekiel about it, see what can be arranged in terms of covering my duties. Maybe I could stay in October and November."

He looks up with a smile, slides a hand down onto her bare ass, and pushes her flush against himself before devouring her mouth with his.

[*]

When Daryl and Carol return together to the Hilltop on Monday, Eugene is heating the bacon grease over a fire. He removes it from the flame. "The refining process has been somewhat tedious, but once I filter the swine byproduct you see before you through the apparatus I have constructed for removing unnecessary particulates, the fuel will be ready for use in the first experimental attempt at propulsion."

"Just tell us when it's ready," Daryl mutters.

[*]

Daryl rolls his new bike onto the highway. It's not the most attractive thing he's ever built – it's way to skinny for his tastes, and it will be a tight fit for both him and Carol, but he had to build it light to accommodate the fuel he's using. Carol slides on behind him and wraps her arms tightly around his waist.

"The moment of truth," she whispers and kisses his ear.

Eugene is there to observe, and he stands equipped with a fire extinguisher should the experiment not work as hoped.

The bike has not been built with a keyed ignition, and Daryl kick starts it with a rough thrust of his heel. The engine clicks, putters, and stops. Disappointed, he holds his breath and kicks again. The engine clicks, putters, and stops. Angry now, he grunts out a "Damnit!" and kicks hard. The engine clicks, roars, and then purrs.

"Hell yeah!" he shouts and shoots off down the highway. He leans hard left to swerve around some debris, and then rights himself again.

The speed and the cold wind in his hair thrills him, but what thrills him even more is the sound of Carol whooping behind him. She takes one hand off his waist and raises her arm high into the air to pump her first as she, too, hollers, "Hell yeah!"

When he picks up even more speed, she lowers her arm and wraps it tightly around him again. He flies down the highway beneath the high December afternoon sun, the feel of his woman's breasts pressed against the worn leather on his back, the old familiar iron horse between his legs, and the smell of bacon grease swirling in the air.


	64. Chapter 64

After they've gone six miles on the bike, as much as she hates to, Carol urges Daryl to turn back to the Hilltop. Who knows how long this experimental fuel will last. Eugene says the small quantity he made could theoretically go thirty miles, but she doesn't want to risk a long walk back on foot if that's not the case. Better that they test the bike in two-mile increments – back and forth – in case they break down.

Daryl reluctantly makes a U-turn in the middle of the highway, around an abandoned car, and back toward the Hilltop. The scent of leather mingles with bacon grease, the bike vibrates between her legs, and the muscles of Daryl's back ripple beneath her chest as they fly down the black, decaying pavement of the highway.

Carol's tingling with excitement when he dismounts the motorcycle just outside the dirt road that winds it way up to the Hilltop. Eugene has disappeared, maybe because a couple of walkers have stumbled out of the woods. Carol dispenses with them with her knife, and when she comes back, wiping the blade, Daryl says, "Yer turn. Let me see ya ride it."

"Alone?"

"Wanna see how you do. Just go a mile 'n back."

He's taught her to ride, but she hasn't had much practice, and none at all in the past eleven months. She's still a bit nervous when she mounts the strange new bike, at least at first. But Carol's feeling the rush by the time she comes back. She dismounts, leans the bike on its stand, and throws her arms around him. "That was so much fun."

"Yeah?" he asks. "Ya like the bike?"

"I love it."

"Good. 'Cause it's yers. Merry Christmas."

Carol's arms slide away from his neck. She's not sure she's heard him correctly. "What?"

"Know it's a few days early, but we ain't gonna see each other 'til after Christmas, so….Merry Christmas."

"But…You spent so long building it!"

"Yeah. 'N Henry said ya like handmade stuff. Made it. With 'm hands."

"Daryl, this is _your_ bike. You _love_ your motorcycles."

Daryl chews on his bottom lip. When it slides out, it's a little raw. "Yeah. Do. But there's somethin' I love more."

Carol blinks hard. If she doesn't, she's not going to be able to hold back these happy tears. "Are you _sure_?"

"Build myself another one eventually. This winter maybe, at the Kingdom, when I ain't hutnin' much. We can do it together. But this way ya got yer own wheels. Ya like it, yeah?"

"I _love_ it. It's the best Christmas gift anyone's ever given me." She throws her arms around his neck again and pops up on her tiptoes. She kisses him hard, and their tongues dance wildly while the sun glints off the smooth metal of the motorcycle's frame.

[*]

Christmas falls on a Friday, but because Christmas is for kids, Carol and Daryl spend it in their respective camps. Daryl joys in watching Judith shred the paper that covers her presents, and he beams over the card she made him out of crayon and construction paper. Meanwhile, Carol carries out her plot to trap Henry and Elizabeth under the mistletoe at the Kingdom's Christmas feast.

But on Sunday, Daryl, accompanied by Rosita, journeys to the Kingdom. The horse is laden with a fully stuffed pack containing most of his belongings, because he doesn't plan to return to the Hilltop until spring. The first big snow will likely drop sometime in the next three weeks, but who knows when. Last year, they go two feet in mid-January, and it took weeks to melt.

Daryl trains with the falcon and then gets roped into a game of poker with Roland, Khalid, Rosita, and Avacado while Carol is helping to prepare the communal dinner.

They play in the old breakroom where teacher's used to eat their lunches and gossip about students. Daryl figures out Khalid's tell instantly – the faintest hint of a smile when he has a good hand. Roland, he learns quickly enough, sits straighter in his chair when he has a bad hand. Rosita scratches her left cheek as soon as she gets anything above a pair. But Avacado he can't read.

"You really an Indian? Grow up on a reservation in Minnesota?" Daryl asks the man after he folds. The others fold, too, one by one, and Avacado pulls the pile of chips toward himself.

"Yes," Avacado answers as he stacks his chips. "But we all live on the reservation now, don't we?"

"What's that mean?" Rosita asks him.

"We each have our little tribes," Avacado answers, "governed by Councils. We have our rustic ways, and we all suspect outsiders."

Khalid shuffles the cards. "Where's the peace pipe? Because Roland could use a hit."

"Me?" Roland asks.

"You need to _relax_ ," Khalid replies.

"And you're clearly not going to get laid by Maggie," Rosita ads.

Khalid deals. "I think we need to find him some drugs."

Avacado fishes inside his brown suede vest and tosses a joint across the table. It lands just in front of Roland, who looks down at it suspiciously. "It's herbal," Avacado says. "Natural."

"So's arsenic," Roland tells him. "And you harbor old jealousies."

"Not anymore," Avacado assures him. "I begin to think you two were the wise ones, to step aside from Cassandra. You made me the sucker in the end."

"God knows it turned out better for me." Khalid smiles at Rosita. "Why don't you stay the winter, like Daryl?"

"Because I'm on the Hilltop Council. _And_ the Alliance Council now. Why don't you come stay the winter at the Hilltop?"

"Because I'm on the Alliance Council. And I have a well to finish plumbing." Khalid sighs. "Well, we'll still see each other until the roads can't be traveled. And this Wednesday, for the first meeting of the Alliance Council."

Roland takes hold of the joint and examines it. "Got a light?" he asks Daryl.

Daryl fishes in the front pocket of his shirt, tosses him a pack of matches, and then picks up the cards he's been dealt and spreads out his hand.

Khalid looks at Avacado. "I thought things were better between you and Cassandra."

"They _were_ better for a while." Avacado sweeps up his hand. "But she's been coming onto Chappie lately." Daryl has no idea who Chappie is. "I'm thinking of applying for a divorce."

Roland lights up the joint. "You'd be the first in the Kingdom. It would be an interesting test case."

"You're supposed to say, _Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that_ ," Khalid informs Roland. He shakes his head. " _Interesting test case_."

"It won't be too interesting," Avacado says. "There's not much in the way of communal property. She might dispute me over one of the longbows and some of the arrows, but that's about it. She can have the room and all the furniture. I can take one of the empty trailers. I don't need much."

"You're really going to do it?" Khalid asks.

Roland coughs around the joint, mutters, "This taste like shit."

Khalid reaches for it, takes a puff, and winces. He extends it to Rosita, whose reaction is similar. Rosita holds it across the table to Daryl, who shakes his head. Avacado accepts the joint back and says, "Yeah, why not?"

"Aren't you going to miss the sex at least?" Rosita asks.

"Yeah, imagine that," Khalid tells her. "Weeks and weeks without sex. Maybe you should move here for the winter."

Rosita rolls her eyes. "I'm a sex camel," she insists.

"Who says we'll stop having sex?" Avacado blows out a stream of smoke. "Now _I_ can be her adulterous lover, and someone else can deal with her daily bullshit."

Khalid chuckles. "The only problem with that plan is that I think you actually love her."

"What's the saying?" Roland asks. "If you love something, let it go? If it was yours, it'll come back to you. If it doesn't, it was - "

"- We playin' or what?" Daryl asks.

[*]

After dinner, Daryl follows Carol back to her trailer. There's a growler of mead on her desk, with a little gold bow on top. "Merry Christmas," she says. "It's not as impressive as a motorcycle…but it's my ration for all of December. And now it's yours."

"Thanks." He slides an arm around her waist, pulls her closes, and gives her a kiss.

Carol steps back. "I do have one more present for you to unwrap, but I need to wrap it first. Can you step outside until I call you back?"

"Mhmhm."

When she calls him back inside, she's wearing a silky, shiny, lacy red negligee, and his mouth just about drops open. It fits all the curves of her body perfectly, cups her pert breasts and teases him with cleavage, and slides around her round ass before ending just below her thighs. The front is peppered with tiny buttons over her breast and all the way down to her waist.

"Jesus," he mutters.

"He _is_ the reason for the season," Carol replies with a smirk. "So are you going to unwrap me?"

One side of Daryl's lip twitches up. "Yeah. But not all the way."

"And since it's your present," she tells him, "you can have any topping you want tonight."

His half smile transforms into a full-blown lecherous grin. Darylsteps forward, puts his rough hands on her hips, lifts her up, and sets her down onto the desk next to his growler of mead. Her legs fall open as he pushes himself between them, and the silky fabric of the negligee slides upward, almost to her hip. With trembling fingers, he eagerly pops free the first button.

[*]

Carol's trailer is bathed in the glow of a string of white Christmas lights that extends across the wall opposite the bed where they lie. After Daryl took her hungrily on the desk, with her lingerie unbuttoned only far enough to free her breasts and her panties roughly discarded on the floor, they both stripped and crawled into bed.

Now they lay side side on their backs, and he reaches over and laces his fingers through hers. Carol loves the quiet tenderness of the gesture. "Best Christmas present ever," he says, and she laughs.

They're quiet for a while, with Daryl's thumb caressing the back of her hand. He asks, "How do the Christmas lights work?"

"Battery operated. We found them in storage in the school. We found several battery operated strings, installed some batteries we found, and, miraculously, they still work. I guess we have three or four years left on some of these well-stored lithium batteries."

"Eugene's tryin' to figure out how to build his own."

"We've got a woman working on that here, too. But I think we're going to have to concentrate on wind and water power going forward." Carol rolls on her side and snuggles up with her head on his chest, and he begins lazily tracing patterns on her back with his thumb.

"Ya talk to Zeke?" he asks. "'Bout stayin' at the Hilltop in the fall?"

"He asked that I come back for the weekly Advisory meetings. And I'd like to see Henry and check up on him. So I'd be at the Hilltop six days a week, and here for one. I have that motorcycle to get there and back quickly now." Carol doesn't want to lose her place of influence in the Kingdom by being temporarily replaced on the Advisory Council. It feels good to have a say here, a say like she hasn't had since the prison council, when Hershel was one of the first men to take her opinion seriously. "Is that okay?"

"Mhmm. Take what I can get."

He sounds a little disappointed, so she's hesitant to add the next caveat: "And...I'd like to come back for Thanksgiving. Just for the day and stay the night. It's a big deal here. We celebrate the end of the War with the Whisperers. You could come with me."

"A'ight."

"You sure that's okay? I mean, I'd be fine with you going home once a week this winter, but the roads won't be passable for part of it."

"Mhmhm. Get ya six days a week." His hand stops over her ass and he squeezes. "Maybe get laid four?"

She laughs. "We'll see." Carol kisses him, slides out from the blankets, and walks naked over to the Christmas lights as Daryl admires her. She clicks them off and crawls back into bed with him.

In the darkness, they find each other.

[*]

They both rise early on Monday morning to head out to check on the Temple, as they promised Esau and Hannah they would before the roads got too iffy to travel. "Rosita and I are coming after you if you aren't back by tomorrow morning," Khalid assures them as they set out.

They pull on leather gloves, zip their leather jackets tight against the early winter wind, and start the trip on Carol's Christmas motorcycle, with Daryl in front. Frost clings to the tall, wild grass growing on the shoulder of the highway. They stop a mile from the Temple, so they won't be heard approaching, and bury the bike beneath some brush in the woods before hiking the last distance on foot.

The trees are more barren now than they were three weeks ago, and they can see more of the grounds through binoculars, but there's no one outside the Temple. They disappear into the woods and make their way to the creek where the Prophet and the other slaughtered walkers lie. A paper-thin layer of ice coats the top of the creek.

Daryl kicks away the brush they used to cover the manhole. "Ya ready for this?" he asks Carol, and she takes a deep breath and nods. Daryl uses the crowbar he's brought to pry open the manhole cover, and Carol slides it back.


	65. Chapter 65

Daryl drops down first, turns on his flashlight, and sweeps the beam through the tunnels as Carol covers him from above with her rifle. "All clear," he calls up, and she comes down.

They wind their way to the iron door that leads to the hallway with the rooms. It is, as they left it, unlocked. Carol flicks on the light switch. The bulbs above, flicker, buzz, and then burn steady. Daryl turns off his flashlight, and they creep down the hallway, sweeping with their weapons, looking into each room, and finding nothing. They scour the hallway and bedrooms for a note from the kids, but there's nothing.

Carol lets out a shaky breath.

"Maybe they just forgot," Daryl says hopefully. "Things're goin' fine, and they just forgot to leave the note to tell us."

"I doubt that," Carol says, guilt settling like a bad meal in her stomach. "What if we made the wrong decision? What if those kids have been hurt?"

"Gotta go in the Temple. Spy it out."

[*]

They decide not to pop up from underneath the altar, in case anyone is at worship in the sanctuary. They don't want to ruin the peace by a strange appearance, if there _is_ peace. So instead they come up out of the manhole that empties into the third story of the Temple, in the walls behind the paintings. They pass by the spot in the hallway that has the baptismal pool, and Carol peers out of the eye holes in the canvas.

To the right of the pool is a staircase that leads down to the lower levels of the Temple. The opening has been blocked by a large couch that has been piled high with white-cushioned chairs. Three of the chairs have fallen over onto the stairs. The hallway leading to the staircase opening has also been blocked by another long couch wedged between the banister and the wall – and it too has been piled with chairs. "That's peculiar," she says, and stands back so Daryl can take a peek.

"'S like they're blockin' something from gettin' up here," he says.

"A person could just move those chairs and climb up over the couches," she replies.

"A person, yeah, but not a walker."

They move on behind the walls until Carol is peering out in the waiting room outside of the so-called "sowing room." The white padded chairs are gone – because they're stacked to make the blockade by the staircase. The waiting room is empty, at least until Carol sees Hannah entering holding a ceramic basin of water. A towel is draped over the shoulder of her long, floral dress.

Carol considers calling out to her, but a woman appears suddenly in the waiting room, probably having come out of the sowing room. Carol recognizes her – it's Esau's mother, the woman they saw in the hallway lamenting her son's disappearance and being threatened by hints from one of her husbands, Ammon, that he might turn her in for doubting.

"How is my father?" Hannah asks.

"He just keeps vomiting up anything I give him," Esau's mother answers.

"He's going to die of dehydration, isn't he?" Hannah asks shakily.

"We need an IV, but we can't get to those supplies."

"And the break room is out of food," Hannah says. "We're going to starve if we can't get to the pantry downstairs."

"Those people who rescued you and Esau from the tunnels, you say they're coming back?"

"Yes," Hannah answers, "but I don't know if they'll come looking for us when they don't find a note. We may just have to fight our way to those supplies."

"But we have no weapons!"

"We'll have to find something to use," Hannah replies.

"And your sure there's no way into those tunnels from this floor?" the woman asks.

"Esau says the manholes empty into the sanctuary, by the doubter's chair, and outside in the forest beyond the fence. That's all at ground level."

Esau must not have known about the ladder that leads up to the third floor and empties behind the walls. Perhaps the Prophet kept that secret from him. Carol and Daryl didn't happen to mention it to the boy either. They assumed he knew where all of the tunnels emptied. But this exit was down a windy maze and up a tall ladder.

For whatever reason, these people have been trapped up here. They could have escaped to the tunnels at any time, had they only known what lay behind this very painting. But they have a sick man in that room, and they're out of food. They need help, and Hannah has apparently told this woman the truth about how she came to be free of the tunnels. Esau's mother – and perhaps everyone else - knows all about them.

Carol and Daryl exchange a glance. Daryl nods, and Carol unsheaths her knife. "Hannah," Carol calls loudly. She can't see the girl startle, because her eyes are not pressed to the peep holes anymore, but she can imagine it. "It's Carol and Daryl! We're behind this painting. There's a ladder from the tunnels that empties in a crawl space up behind these walls. We're coming out."

She stabs the blade of her knife into the back of the canvass and rips it downward. The canvas is thick, and she has to saw at some points. Paint flecks off as she works the blade down and then pries the knife out. She cuts another line across the top, and then down again.

"We've got it!" Hannah yells from the other side, and Carol sees hands push through the jagged cuts and begin to peel away the canvass. Carol shields her eyes when the full, artificial light of the waiting room bursts through. After she adjusts to the brightness, and the canvass is peeled away, she jumps down into the waiting room. Daryl's boots thud against the carpet beside her.

Esau's mother looks at Daryl with astonishment, then at his crossbow and Carol's rifle. She takes a few frightened steps backward.

"They won't hurt you," Hannah assures her. She looks from Daryl to Carol. "We need your help."

[*]

Carol and Daryl lean back against the wall beside the shredded painting as they listen to Hannah's story.

At first, it seemed things might work out. The Temple people followed the commands of Carol-as-Prophet and had an election for their own leader. Hannah's father Christopher won. While they continued to follow many of the rituals of their religion, they also made some changes. After a week in charge of the Temple, Christopher ordered that each man and woman be permitted to "re-evaluate their marriage vows" and choose whether or not to remain wed.

Some women chose to keep all of their husbands, some only one or two of their husbands, and some chose no husband at all. In some cases, a husband walked away against his wife's desires, but for the most part, it was the women putting one or more of their husband's aside.

Esau's mother Rebecca divorced her husbands, including Ammon, which angered him. He began to preach that Hannah's father Christopher was a false prophet, an adversary intent on leading them all astray. Two factions formed, one led by Ammon, and the other, larger one led by Christopher. They maintained a shaky peace, holding separate worship services and separate communal meals. This state of schism lasted fifteen days.

But two days ago, Ammon approached Christopher and said he'd had a dream vision of two streams flowing into one to become a strong river. God had moved his heart to seek peace with his spiritual brothers and sisters in the Temple, to end the schism, and to reunite as one. Ammon invited the other faction to a communal Feast of Reconciliation.

"We think he poisoned the wine," Hannah explains.

"A lot of people got sick that night," Esau's mother Rebecca tells them, "but no one in Ammon's faction."

"None of the pregnant women in my dad's faction got sick," Hannah says. "Or any of the children."

Rebecca rests a hand on her belly, which is barely showing. "That's why Hannah and I are well. And that's what gave us further evidence it was in the wine. Pregnant women and children sixteen and under don't drink the communal wine at religious feasts. Everyone else has a full glass each."

Three men, among them Christopher, managed to survive the poison despite being struck with powerful vomiting. Most of the men, older teenagers, and non-pregnant women, however, died.

"It happened so suddenly," Hannah says. "I know you told us everyone has the disease inside them, but we were all so busy trying to figure out what was going on, and nursing those who hadn't died…we were just so overwhelmed, we didn't think about piercing the brains right away. Everyone who died began to transform into rotting man beasts."

No one had a weapon at hand, because they all leave their bows and knives stored by the Temple door and only take them outside or on the roof. "The Temple is peaceful grounds," Rebecca explains.

The freshly turned walkers set upon both factions and took a few people down. While they were busy feasting, the survivors escaped in two directions. Ammon's faction fled to the sanctuary and locked itself inside, while Christopher's faction retreated up the stairs. They quickly set up the blockades to keep the walkers below, and then they retreated out of sight down the hallway.

"We've been up here for two nights now, while those rotting man beasts…" Hannah swallows and shakes her head. "They're just growling around down there."

Sometimes a rotting walker would crawl its way up the stairs, but they stayed out of sight. The walkers could never do more than pull over a few chairs, and eventually they would give up and roll or slide or crawl downstairs. "They're probably piled up against the sanctuary door," Rebecca says.

"So Ammon's faction is trapped in there?" Carol asks.

Rebecca nods. "Unless they tried to come out and got devoured."

"How many women and children are in that faction?" Carol asks.

"Three women. Seven children," Rebecca answers. "Eight men, including Ammon. There were more men, but I saw some get overrun before they escaped to the Sanctuary."

"And Does Ammon's faction know about the trap door on the stage and the tunnels beneath it?"

"No," Hannah answers. "I just told her" – the girl nods to Rebecca "- _everything_ yesterday."

"How many of ya are there up here?" Daryl asks.

"There's me," Rebecca answers, "and another two pregnant women. There's Hannah here, her father Christopher, two other men, and about eleven children."

"Esau?" Carol asks in an unsteady voice.

"He's up here," Hannah assures her. "He made it."

"The two other men?" Carol asks. "They survived the poisoning?"

"They got better," Hannah says. "They're keeping water down now. But my father isn't. We need to get to the medical supplies we keep on the first floor."

"I was a nurse," Rebecca tells them. "I can run an IV for him. We have the supplies. We just have to _get_ to them." She looks at Carol's rifle and Daryl's crossbow. "There are probably three dozen of those rotting man beasts down there."

"Is that too many?" Hannah asks. "For you to kill?"

Daryl glances at Carol.

"No," she says firmly. "We'll figure something out." She's not going to let Hannah's father die. She can't, not when this weight is pressing down on her heart, this fear that if she hadn't tried to play the Prophet and had just forced Esau and Hannah to come with them – kidnapped them, if necessary - all of these other people would still be alive. "We'll _get_ your father that IV."


	66. Chapter 66

Daryl leads the two pregnant women, eleven children, and two barely-recovered men through the torn-up painting, into the walls, and to safety in the underground bunker. The men collapse onto a mattress in one of the rooms, and Daryl brings them bottled water while telling one of the women to start heating up some storage food in hot water from the sinks. None of these people has eaten in twenty-four hours. They've had water, fortunately, because of the upstairs bathroom sinks, but the snacks in the break room were exhausted after the first day.

"Any food or water in that sanctuary?" Daryl asks a teenage girl named Alma, who, a month shy of her seventeenth birthday, was not yet drinking the communal wine.

"No, food, sir," Alma replies. "But we do store wine in a wine cabinet in the balcony."

Meanwhile, Carol stays behind with Hannah and Rebecca, who are tending to Hannah's father. Christopher languishes on the King-size, white-canopied bed in the sowing room, which reeks of vomit.

Carol hands Rebecca her handgun and gives Hannah one of her knives. "For protection and for…" She can't bring herself to say it, but Hannah understands.

"In case my father dies," the sixteen-year-old chokes. "So he doesn't transform."

Carol looks at Christopher lying weakly on the bed, his chest rising and falling. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know this would happen."

"You can't blame yourself," Hannah says. "I agreed to the plan."

"You're just a child," Carol tells her. "I should have forced you to come with us. I should never have gotten on that radio. Maybe if I had – "

"- My ex-husband Ammon is a cruel man," Rebecca interrupts her. "Deep inside. If I had known, I never would have followed him to this Temple. But I did. He was my brother-in-law, my children's uncle. My husband had died. We thought we'd find safety here for me and my little boy and my older girl."

Carol's eyes meet hers. "Your girl – "

"- Alma made it. She's down there with your husband." Carol doesn't correct her assumption that Daryl is her husband. "When we got here," Rebecca continues, "and we were taught the Revelation….Ammon believed it immediately. The rest of us were more hesitant. He insisted he had to marry me, in accordance with the Revelation, and I allowed him, because I thought it would keep us safe here. But he's never been anything but cruel." She shakes her head. "I think _he_ was the one who reported Esau, who took my boy from me, but you brought him back! You brought my Esau back. And you gave Christopher his Hannah back." Rebecca looks at the sick man on the bed. "If you had taken our children from us, and not spoken through the radio, and the Prophet had simply fallen silent….I think things would have been worse. Everything still would have fallen apart, but fewer people would have had the courage to follow Christopher without your words."

"Did you have other husbands?" Carol asks.

"I also married Ammon's cousin. He's with Ammon in the sanctuary now. If they're still alive. But I divorced them both, when Christopher said we could."

"And Christopher's wife?" Carol asks.

"She lived," Hannah tells her, "because she's pregnant. Daryl took her down into the tunnels." Hannah takes hold of her father's pale and sweaty hand. "She divorced one of her husbands, but stayed married to my father and my uncle. The other man…he joined Ammon. But my uncle…he died from the poison."

Carol sighs. "I'm sorry."

"We don't blame you," Rebecca tells her. "Things were starting brew before you ever came here. But you can help us now. You know what you're doing in this world."

"Keep the door shut," Carol tells them. "Don't come out until you hear from me or Daryl."

She unshoulders her rifle, exits the sowing room, and closes it behind herself. By the shredded painting in the waiting room, she waits for Daryl to return.

[*]

Daryl peers over the blockaded stairwell. "Question is…do we kill Ammon's faction?"

"We kill Ammon at least," Carol says. "He's a mass murderer. Do you remember what he looks like, from when we were spying before?"

Daryl nods.

"As for the rest of his faction…we don't kill the kids, of course. They were dragged into it. The other adults…I don't know. I guess that depends on whether or not they fight us."

"Can't leave 'em here with the survivors, though. Not if they followed Ammon. Might try to kill 'em again."

Carol rubs her eyes wearily. "It's been so long since we've had to do anything like this. I thought we were done killing people." She lowers her hand and sighs. "The women may have been dragged along, too. I say we just kill the men."

Daryl hrmphs. "Bit sexist, ain't it? How ya know the women didn't drag their men?"

"We kill Ammon," she says, "and then we see how they react. We make a call from there."

"Fair enough." Daryl leans a little over the banister. A walker, probably in response to their voices, is growling its way toward the bottom of the staircase. It looks up and gnashes its jaws, takes a step forward, hits the bottom stair, and stumbles onto its face before beginning to crawl up. Daryl ignores it for now.

"Should we kill the walkers first," Carol asks, "or go up through the trap door in the sanctuary and deal with Ammon and his people?"

"Got a vantage point here," Daryl reasons. "Things can't climb too fast. Let's lure the fuckers to the stairs with noise, 'n take 'em out from up here. Then go in the sanctuary from the front door."

Carol considers his words. "But if we pop up from beneath the trapdoor, that will give us the element of surprise, instead of coming in after a couple dozen gunshots."

Daryl scratches his cheek. "Gotta point." After he levels his bow and shoots the crawling creature in the head, he says, "But if the walkers start pilin' up on these stairs while we's busy doin' that, they could finally get up in a group, pull that couch all the way over, 'n Hannah and Rebecca could end up in danger."

"Well, that's why we stop hanging out here at the banister like live bait," Carol tells him in a whisper.

Daryl mulls it over as another walker approaches the stairs. He shoots this one in the head before it can even stumble and crawl. "A'ight. Ammon first."

They disappear from the balcony and crawl back into the walls.

[*]

Carol clings to a rung beneath Daryl and looks up at him as he places his fingertips on the wood of the trapdoor. They have to move fast, get on that stage, and ready their weapons. They don't think anyone is armed in the sanctuary - not if they store their knifes and bows and arrows by the Temple doors - but they don't want to take chances either.

"Three," Carol whispers in the countdown. "Two….one!"

Daryl pushes the trapdoor forcefully open, scurries the rest of the way up the ladder, flings himself onto the stage, rolls over, and rises to one knee with his crossbow ready to shoot. Carol is only seconds behind him. Kneeling and pointing their weapons, they flank either side of the trap door. The chandler above burns with a hundred electric candle-shaped bulbs, and Carol blinks against the sudden light.

The first thing she hears is a high-pitched girlish scream from the balcony above them. Instinctively, she looks up and sees a girl standing with her head just barely above the balcony wall, staring at them in horror. A taller boy puts a hand over her mouth to silence her and then yanks her down and out of sight beneath the solid white half-wall.

The next thing Carol hears is the gnashing and growling of a small group of walkers, which turn away from a closed-off staircase leading up to the balcony and lurch along the side aisle toward the stage. Meanwhile, three other walkers come at the stage from the other side, and a final walker stumbles down the center aisel.

Deftly and quickly, with a _woosh-pop-pop-woosh-pop-pop-woosh-pop-pop,_ they take care of all nine creatures. Then they raise their weapons upward and scour the balcony from where the scream came, but no one can be seen above the solid white banister wall.

"Get 'em later. Ain't got guns. Need to clear first." Daryl thunders down the three steps that lead from the stage, with Carol fast on his heels. He points to himself, and points left. He points to her and points right, and they divide and begin to sweep the pews all the way back to the exit door to make sure there are no more walkers.

The exit door has been locked with a bolt from the inside, and the heavy wood altar table has been carried from the stage and pushed flush against it. Walkers' faces press against the vertical glass of the two windows in the door. Jaws gnash against the windows, and the herd outside buzzes like a bee hive. The door shudders from the force of the walkers piling against it.

"Some of 'em get in somehow?" Daryl asks.

Carol walks away from the door and kicks over the fallen walker in the center aisle to examine it. "I don't think so," she says. "Look at this one."

Daryl studies the freshly turned creature. "'S that Ammon?"

"Pretty sure it is. He's fresh. Turned in the last ten to twenty hours, probably. These walkers must be Ammon's faction."

Daryl crouches down and studies the body. He moves the creature's head and examines the marks on its neck. "Think he was strangled to death with some kind of wire. Two, it looks like. Maybe two people at once strangled 'em in his sleep last night."

Carol walks over to another body and crouches down. "I think this man's been strangled with wire, too."

Daryl comes and falls to his haunches beside her. "Mutiny." He rises and roams among the fallen bodies, making a count. "Nine total. Seven male. Two female. Three strangled. Rest probably got bit when those three turned."

"Hannah said there were three women, eight men, and seven children," Carol reasons. "So there must be a man and woman hiding in that balcony, and seven kids."

They make their way over to the balcony stairs. A sturdy partial-door, painted white and rising about four feet, reads "Balcony Closed." A man would have simply climbed over it to pursue his prey, but the walkers were slamming against it. Eventually, they would have toppled over it and crawled up the stairs. But it looks like the walkers were distracted for a long time by a meal - on the floor just outside the closed, locked balcony door lie two feasted upon bodies. Almost nothing is left. The bones have been picked nearly clean. "Make that seven kids," Carol says. "It looks like these two adults stayed behind to hold off the walkers so the kids could lock the stairwell door and get all the way up the stairs to safety."

"Sacrificed themselves," Daryl agrees. Turned over chairs, hymnals, music stands, and busted-up musical instruments litter the carpet beneath the balcony and near the stairs. "When they was done eatin', kids tired to keep 'em away from the stairs by throwin' shit on 'em. Guess that's why some of the walkers wandered off to the other side." " He points to a guitar, which has been pummeled beneath the feet of walkers, probably after hitting one on the head. "Strings," Daryl says.

"What?" Carol asks.

"Whoever strangled them three men used guitar strings."

They both look up and scour the balcony again. Suddenly, a girlish giggle erupts from above, followed by an impatient _Shhhh!_ Followed by a boy's giggle, another Shhh! and then lots more childish giggles and finally outright guffaws.

"What the hell?" Carol asks.

"Be quiet!" an male voice yells, a teenager, probably. "They'll find ushhhh!"

"Ussssssssh!" a young female voice replies. "Usssshhhhh!"

"SHhhhhhhhh!" cries back the teenage boy's voice, but then he, too, begins to laugh.

As the laughter of children fills the sanctuary, Carol turns her questioning eyes to Daryl.

"One of them kids I took down to the tunnels said they ain't got no food or water in here," he explains. "Just wine."

"Wine?" she asks.

"Think them kids're drunk off their goddamn asses up there. Two days without water. Used what they had."

"But alcohol could easily poison a small child."

"'S hope they ain't small." Daryl hoists himself up and over the four-foot balcony door and unlocks it from the other side to let her through. They make their way cautiously up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, a teenage boy rounds the corner of the balcony wall and tries to knock Carol out with a chair, but Daryl wrenches it from his grasp, which causes the boy to fly forward, fall face first, and groan. He rolls over, sits up, and laughs. But his laugh quickly turns into a sob. Crying, he begs, "Don't kill ush, don't kill ush, pleeash don't kill ush!"

"Ain't gonna kill no one," Daryl tells him.

Carol continues down the balcony to survey the scene. All of the kids sit on the floor, half propped up against the Temple wall. Four of them, who look to be between ten and thirteen, cover their mouths in an attempt not to laugh. The youngest child looks to be about seven. He's pale, weak, and sick on wine, having recently thrown up a trail of thick, reddish-black liquid on his shirt. An older girl, maybe twelve, has an arm around the weary boy, and she looks at Carol in wide-eyed terror. Tears pool in her young eyes as she stares at the strange woman who stands before her, an AR-15 in her right hand, and her left hand resting on the hilt of her knife.


	67. Chapter 67

A flashlight in one hand, Daryl carries the sickest, smallest boy on his hip through the dark tunnels. The hazy beam of his flashlight sweeps a path for the stumbling children, while Carol takes up the rear and redirects boys and girls when they stagger into the walls.

When they get through the iron door to the lighted hallway of the bunker, a blonde, pregnant woman peers her head cautiously out of one of the open doors of the bedroom. Then her eyes widen at the sight of the children and she steps into the hallway. "Ammon?" she asks the oldest boy, the one who tried to knock out Carol with a chair in a drunken attempt to protect the other children.

"Dead," he answers.

"Your cousins?"

"Dead," he slurs. "All the grown-upsh are dead."

The woman looks from Carol to Daryl with mixed fear and gratitude in her eyes. "You killed them?"

"Nah, they's already dead," Daryl says.

Carol tells her briefly what they know and says, "Get all these kids some food. They need something to sop up the alcohol."

At this point, the other children from Christopher's faction begin to spill out of the rooms to view their old friends with curiosity. Alma, Esau's older sister, runs to the oldest, drunken boy and throws her arms around him. "Oh, Gideon," she cries. "I thought we'd never see each other again."

Carol recognizes the name and recalls the conversation she saw between Ammon and Rebecca in the hallway last time they were here. She surmises this is the boy Rebecca didn't want her daughter to marry at eighteen, because then she would also have to marry his two thirty-something, male cousins.

Gideon grins sloppily. "You're as beautiful as a shun-set."

Alma flushes, laughs, and steps back. "Are you _drunk_?"

Gideon pulls her back into a hug. "I'm shorry," he slurs. "I'm shorry I went with Ammon. I thought I had to because my coushins did. I didn't know what he was going to do with the wine. I would have shaid shomething."

Carol peers in on the room where the two poisoned men now sit up on the mattress, their backs against the wall. A red-headed pregnant woman paces the bed in front of them, feeding a fussy baby juice through an eye dropper. The baby can't be more than three months old.

"Its mother died?" Carol asks.

The red-head nods. "I've been trying to induce lactation to feed it," she says. "But I haven't been able to yet. I'm sure I will. After all, I'm due soon myself. But for the past two days, the poor little guy's only had water. I know juice isn't good for a baby, but it's all we have until my milk comes in. And at least it will get him some calories." The baby sucks eagerly on the eye dropper, swallows, turns its head, cries, and goes back to the dropper.

"We can send a wet nurse to feed it if your milk doesn't come in soon." Carol looks at the men. "How are you recovering?"

"We've kept the food down," one of them answers. "How's Christopher?"

"When we clear the Temple, we'll get him that IV," she assures them.

When Carol steps out of the room, Esau is directly in front of her. "I want to help," the boy insists. "I killed a walker once. In the woods with the Prophet. I used a knife."

Carol shakes her head. "There's too many. It isn't safe for you."

" _Please_ , I want to help." He turns to Daryl and pleads with his big brown eyes.

"'S the front door of the Temple unlocked?" Daryl asks.

"We never lock it," Alma says, coming to stand by her little brother. "There's no reason to, with the fence."

"Then the kid can help," Daryl insists.

Carol shoots him a warning look that screams _no_.

"It'll be safe," Daryl assures her. "Can help by goin' into that sanctuary. Makin' noise, poundin', screamin', keepin' them walkers pressed against that door. We come out by the doubter's chair, come in the front door of the Temple, take 'em from behind while they's all piled up. When they peel off after us…Esau makes more noise, draws 'em back again. Be like shootin' fish in a barrel."

"What if my bullets go _through_ the door?" Carol asks.

"We shoot a warnin' shot in the air, and then Esau gets away from the doors when he hears it. Can make noise from the side."

"The door is bullet proof," one of the pregnant women says. "The sanctuary was designed to be a safe room in the event of a social uprising. There's metal inside the wood, between two panels."

"Even better," Daryl says.

It's a good plan, and it doesn't put Esau at much risk. That door was sturdy, and the heavy wooden altar door is also holding it shut. Still, Carol's hesitant when she agrees.

Alma puts a hand on Esau's shoulder. "I'll help him, too. Esau's my little brother. He's _not_ doing this alone."

"A'ight then," Daryl agrees. "'S move."

[*]

When they get to the fork in the tunnels, Alma and Esau head toward the sanctuary and Carol and Daryl toward the manhole that opens onto the Temple grounds. The afternoon sun is high and the temperature has risen a good ten degrees when they pop up by the doubter's chair. There's no sign of frost on the decaying, leaf-littered earth in the forest clearing. It's all melted away.

Carol rolls some orange ear plugs into a ball and shoves one in each ear and then hands Daryl a pair. He hates these things, but she's going to be firing that AR-15 inside, and it will echo, so he complies. The sound shouldn't bother the kids as much through the sanctuary door, or Rebecca, Hannah, and Christopher three stories up in the sowing room.

They jog quickly through the forest and around the side of the Temple. It's their first time seeing this side of the grounds, and Daryl looks in awe at the acres of recently plucked corn and. When they round the front of the Temple, he takes in the gardens. Some plots are covered by tarps and lying fallow for the winter, while others grow with winter greens, and still more have been covered in sturdy, clear tents with solar heaters. Inside them, vegetables he never expected to see in December flourish.

Daryl almost stops jogging at the impressive sight of the Temple looming before him, but then he picks up his pace to catch up with Carol beneath the alabaster awning. She tugs on the great door of the Temple, and when it swings open, he jumps inside first to sweep left and right. They run quickly across the marble foyer and toward the sanctuary doors.

Daryl's boots squeal to a stop on the marble floor when he's several yards from the walkers piled against the sanctuary doors. He and Carol begin firing immediately. They take down probably ten of the creatures from behind before the herd even begin to turn and lurch toward them.

Some of the walkers remaining thrashing at the sanctuary door in response to Esau and Alma's hollering faces pressed against the windows, but the ones coming toward them are moving fast enough to make Daryl nervous as he struggles to reload. He hasn't seen walkers move this fast in a long time. He's used to aged, decript, and exhausted creatures, not freshly turned ones.

Carol fires until dry, and drops the magazine from her gun. It clatters onto the marble floor, and she frees another from her belt and slaps it into her rifle.

Meanwhile, a walker lurches straight at her from a hallway on the side. It must have wandered off from the herd earlier. Daryl swivels, steps behind Carol as she shoots in front of herself, and sends an arrow wooshing into the monster's forehead. The walker crumples just a few feet from her, and its head slams down on the marble floor, sending brains sprawling like a black paint-stain across the marble.

Daryl breathes a sigh of relief, turns, and prepares to shoot more of the approaching beasts, but Carol has already bought the rest of them down. "Damn," he mutters.

"Thanks for covering me," she says.

"Mhmhn. Anythin' for my plain vanilla."

Carol smiles. " _Stop_."

Daryl recovers his arrows from the fallen walkers and stabs a few that aren't quite dead. Carol climbs up on some of the fallen bodies to reach the sanctuary doors and calls the all clear through the window to the kids.

The altar table scrapes as the kids pull it away from the sanctuary doors. When the kids open the door, they look in horror at the fallen bodies. Alma sobs.

These are their friends and relatives, Daryl remembers suddenly, poisoned and turned. Daryl pities the teenage girl, but there's no time for comfort. "Show us where ya keep the medical supplies. Now."

[*]

Alma and Esau lead them down a high-ceilinged, arched hallway. Carol and Daryl have shouldered their rifle and crossbow, but they walk with knives drawn. It's a good thing, too, because a walker rounds a hallway and lunges toward them. Daryl swings up, around, and then down with his knife like he's doing a choreographed dance move and plants the blade in its forehead before ripping the knife out.

Alma screams as the creature flops to the ground like an abandoned marionette.

To Daryl, killing that walker was like stepping on a cockroach. But Alma's scream, followed by Esau's sputter of, "Oh, Mr. Osmond…" once again reminds him of the humanity behind those glassy eyes.

"C'mon," he urges the kids, and pushes Esau gently with a hand on his little shoulder. The boy feels about as scrawny as Sophia did, the one time Daryl touched her to drag her back from the edge of the woods at the quarry camp, when she was following a bunny. He scared the shit out of her doing that, but he didn't want some foolish kid walking blind into the woods.

Alma leads them through some kind of a banquet hall. There are enough tables and chairs to seat seventy people. One wall of the great dining hall is completely lined with storage shelving containing boxes upon boxes of food and drinks.

Beside him, Carol gasps at the sight of prosperity. They follow the boy and girl into a massive kitchen. Alma flicks on a light switch and Daryl's eyes fall on the humming deep freezer, which has to be at least 40 cubic feet. He hasn't heard an electric hum like that since Alexandria was destroyed.

The kitchen has _three_ deep freezers as well as a massive, stainless steel, two-doored refrigerator. Fresh produce lines the counters in bowls, and he bets those cabinets are full, too. These people, he thinks, are the Rockefellers of the apocalyptic world.

Alma walks straight to a double pantry door and throws one side of it open. It's a walk-in pantry, eight feet wide and twenty feet deep. Daryl expects to see more food as he follows her inside, but instead it's full of other supplies – medicines, equipment, batteries, spare radio parts, extra arrows for the Temple's hunting bows, cleaning supplies, and more. A metal stand that holds an IV bag and tubing rests against the back shelf. Alma rolls it over to him. Then she picks up a brown box labeled _IV supplies_.

[*]

Rebecca and Hannah hover over Christopher like mother hens as liquids drips through the IV tube that leads into his arm. Esau brings the formula to the baby in the bunker. Carol and Daryl, with the help of the older children, including a now half-sobered Gideon, drag all of the bodies of the slain walkers into a pile behind the Temple for burning. One of the men is well enough to help, but the other is still too weak.

As Carol works to help surround the bodies with rocks to contain the coming fire, Daryl leads Gideon aside to a memorial bench situated some yards away and asks him to sit down.

The teenager plops down, and Daryl sits on the cool wood next to him. "Hell happened in there? In that Sanctuary?"

Gideon tells him. He's not slurring as much anymore, but he does stumble over his words. No one in Ammon's faction knew the man was going to poison the others, and when they figured out that's what had happened, two of the men turned on him and strangled him to death. But three of Ammon's supporters in turn strangled those two men and re-established control of the group.

"We thought the Chosen didn't transform," Gideon says.

"Everyone's got the disease in 'em."

"Yeah. Alma just told me that, back in the bunker. Esau and Hannah told her. But we didn't know. And we _all_ still thought we were chosen. So we just left the three dead men in a corner of the Sanctuary. We couldn't get out, because of the walkers against the doors."

When they were all asleep the second night, the dead men turned and began devouring others. The children escaped into the music loft, with two of their parents sacrificing themselves so they could get to freedom.

"The adults had given us a little wine that first day because there was no water," Gideon explains. "They were parceling it out a tiny bit at a time, so we wouldn't get sick. But when it was just me and the kids up there for hours and hours, and they were _so_ thirsty, and they were begging and begging me for something to drink…" He sighs. "I guess I gave them too much. I had too much. I was so thirsty."

"Kids're gonna be fine," Daryl assures him. "Did the best ya knew how. Kept 'em alive."

Gideon swipes at the tears that run down his cheeks. "My cousins are dead. They were wrong to follow Ammon instead of Christopher…but they were like fathers to me." He lets out a trembling breath. "Thank God Alma doesn't turn seventeen until tomorrow, or she'd have drunk the wine and be dead, too." He swipes angrily at his eyes again, and then stands and walk-stumbles forward to help with the rocks that surround the dead bodies of his fallen people.


	68. Chapter 68

After the bodies are burned, and the Temple folk sing a haunting dirge to honor their dead, the sun begins to set. Hannah invites Carol and Daryl to stay the night, and they're exhausted enough that they agree. In the banquet hall, they eat a late evening meal prepared by the older children and the red-headed pregnant woman, whom Carol has learned is named Carolyn.

"That'll be easy to remember," Carol tells her.

Carolyn sits across from her at the table now, feeding the orphaned infant because she managed to induce lactation an hour ago. The baby is eager for a meal that isn't water or diluted juice. Daryl, flushing, keeps his eye on his plate, but he doesn't forget to compliment the chef. "'S good," he says.

"Thank you," Carolyn replies. She pops the baby off her breast and hands him to the man next to her, whose name is Mark, and who is apparently Carolyn's only surviving husband.

Carolyn pulls up her dress and begins to eat as Mark leans away from his plate to cradle the orphaned infant. Mark steals narrowed-eyed glances at Carol, and she wonders if he blames her for the death of his two brothers, who were poisoned at the hands of Ammon. If it hadn't been for her radio broadcast, maybe things would have played out differently. Perhaps things would have been better, or perhaps, as Rebecca told her, they would have been worse.

"It's way better than my cooking," Carol says.

"Nah," Daryl insists. "They just got stoves 'n refrigerators 'n shit." He looks up from his plate at Carolyn. "But 's good."

"What do you do for milk?" Carol asks. There's something creamy in the dish. She saw there was a large barn in back of the Temple when they were running from the exit by the doubter's chair, but she doesn't know what's in it. Khalid and Rosita could never see that side of the Temple.

"We have two cows in the barn," answers Carolyn. "Mark's brothers brought them from their farm when they came here."

"What other animals do you have in the barn?" Carol asks her.

"Just chickens and rabbits. And one horse."

When Rebecca enters the dining hall late, makes herself a plate, and sits between her children Esau and Alma, Hannah asks her, "How is my father?"

"He's getting much better," she answers. "He's fully conscious, but weak. I'm going to take out the IV and try him on some Gatorade and a little solid food in the morning."

Carol glances over Daryl's shoulder at a second table where the third surviving Temple man, named Joe, sits eating with his five children. Joe survived the poisoning, and is looking haggard, but he's taking steady bites. His wife, however, Carol has learned, was killed by the poison, as was his brother and his cousin. Joe catches her eyes and Carol thinks she'll see anger in them, but instead he nods respectfully and calls over to her, "Thank you for getting me and my kids to safety."

After dinner, Hannah shows Carol and Daryl to the guest room where they'll spend the night. The bedrooms are converted classrooms. In the early days, before they permanently shut the Temple gates, Hannah tells them, some of the men hauled looted furniture from furniture stores to turn the place into a dormitory.

"Sleep well," Hannah tells them. "And thank you. Thank you for rescuing us. We would have died trapped up there, or died trying to get out. So would the kids in the Sanctuary."

[*]

"God this is nice," Carol says as she settles beneath the fresh sheets on a newly made-up bed with a white canopy. "I feel like a pretty princess."

Daryl snorts, but he doesn't get in bed yet. He's studying all three of the paintings in the room, scouring them for peep holes. He double checks that the door is locked, and makes sure his crossbow is leaned against the bed within easy reach. He snaps off his knives, handgun, and magazines one by one and lays his gear on the nightstand. Then he whisks off his belt with a snap, drops his pants, and sheds his outer shirt. He leaves the clothes in a pool on the floor and turns the electric lamp down to its lowest setting, but he doesn't turn it off completely. Carol's glad. She'd hate to have to ask for a _nightlight_ , but they _are_ in a strange place.

Daryl crawls in under the sheets wearing only his plaid boxers and a white, sleeveless undershirt. After all, it's not cold in the Temple. Electric heat pours through the vents. The Temple people keep it low, at fifty degrees, to conserve energy, but that's a lot warmer than a December in the Kingdom or at the Hilltop.

Carol settles into Daryl's arms and kisses his chin because it's near where she's lain her head. Absentmindedly, he rubs her back through her thin undershirt with a thumb. She breathes in, and then out, as if she can breathe away the guilty feelings that have been dancing like angry moths in her chest. "I can't believe they don't hate us," she says. "That they don't blame us for everything falling apart."

"We ain't raised a hand to a single one of 'em. And we saved 'em, what was left of 'em. They blame the Prophet for lyin' to 'em. Blame Ammon for bein' a murderous asshole. What ain't right 'bout that?"

"I just didn't expect it. As crazy as they were…. _are_? Their religion? I thought they'd break down and blame us."

"Wonder how many of these people ain't believed for a long while. Wonder how many ain't never believed, 'n just went along to survive. 'S like that time I took m' high school girl to see _Out of Africa_."

Carol raises her head and looks down at him. "How so?"

"'S are second date. Hadn't gotten anywhere yet. Heard it was s'posed to be a romance or some shit, and Merle always said romance movies get ya laid. So I sat through the whole damn thing. Kept my arm 'round her, gettin' all sorts of cramps. Most borin' shit I ever saw. Complete snoozefest." Carol giggles. "But I thought she was enjoyin' it, so I just sat there and didn't say shit. 'Cept, she was doin' the same thing. Hated it. Was borin' her to tears. But since I picked it, she thought I liked it. Didn't get laid 'n didn't find out 'til weeks later that she hated it, too."

"And that's what these people have been doing for almost five years? Sitting in a dark theater and pretending to like a movie, but never daring to ask each other if the other person likes it?"

"Maybe so."

"Tell you what," Carol says. "If I ever think a movie is horseshit, I'm just going to tell you."

"Know it." He kisses her nose. "'S one of this six hundred things I love 'bout you."

She smiles. "Yeah? What are the other 599?"

"Ain't tellin'."

Carol slides her hand down to his hip. "What if I tell you three things I love about you? Will you tell me two more?"

"Ya got three things?"

Carol smiles. "Yes, Daryl, I've got three things. At least. What do you think one of them is?" She hopes he's grown confident enough to know what a woman might find attractive about him.

"Hmmm…" He seems to ponder her question. "Probably…" He scratches his cheek thoughtfully. "Have to say…" He looks at her as if he's really going to answer her seriously, but then says, "m' cock."

She slaps him on the stomach, and he laughs.

Then she laughs. "I _do_ like your cock," she admits.

"Yeah, ya do. Ya love cock." He rolls over on top her and thrust playfully against her. "Want some?"

"Not now. Not _here_." She pushes against his shoulder until he gets the message to slide off her, but he's not even erect. He's only playing. He's probably as tense about their unfamiliar surroundings as she is.

He tosses an arm around her and settles his head on the pillow next to hers.

"Since you won't guess," she says, "I'll just tell you. I love how generous you are. You giving me that motorcycle…I felt like I was in _The Gift of the Magi_. I didn't give you anything nearly as nice."

"Hell ya didn't. Gave me yer body. All wrapped up, too." He kisses her neck.

"And I love what a good godfather you are to Judith," she says. "And how you talked to Henry even though you didn't want to, just because I asked you to. I love how skilled you are at hunting and tracking. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty damn sexy. I love that you're a man of honor." Daryl has grown strangely still beside her. "That you think about right and wrong as seriously as you do. I love that you're honest and say exactly what you mean. I love how you put others before you, how you built that tent so others who were weaker than you could have a room in the mansion. I love how patient you've been with me. I love how you can be rough when you have to be, but gentle when I want you to be." She makes him look at her by putting a finger under his chin and tilting it up. Somehow, though, he still manages to duck his eyes down. "Was that three?"

"'S more 'n three," he murmurs, and then he meets her eyes with his. "I love you, Carol."

"I love you, too." Carol leans in and kisses him, and, unfamiliar surroundings be damned, when the kiss deepens, she finds herself rubbing instinctively against him.

Daryl slides one hand under her shirt and gently cups a breast. She murmurs against his lips, and now he _is_ hard. They kiss and pet softly, until they can't stand the barrier of clothes between them. Daryl jerks her panties down. She undoes the button on the flap of his boxers and draws him out. Carol rolls onto her back and urges him on top, and Daryl slides into her with a slow moan.

They rock together in the strange bed, so comfortably familiar with each other's bodies. The box springs creak like a rhythmic lullaby, and after both are spent, they fall asleep almost instantly.

[*]

In the morning, Christopher is up and out of bed. He catches up with Daryl and Carol as they prepare to leave, their packs and weapons slung over their shoulders. "Wait!" he calls as they reach the top of the stairs.

They turn, and Christopher takes a few difficult steps toward them before leaning for support against the railing just above the softly gurgling waters of the baptismal pool. His black hair curls around his ears and frames his still-pale face. "Hannah told me everything that happened. First you saved my daughter from the Prophet's prison, and then you saved us all from the rotting man beasts. Thank you."

"It was nothing," Carol says softly.

"I was a weak fool, to let Ammon put Hannah in the doubter's chair. If only I'd had the courage to resist him back then, more people might be alive today." He shakes his head. "But I was afraid my whole family would be banished and we would lose it all. I don't know what to believe anymore. None of us does."

"Ain't got to believe nothin'," Daryl says. "Just got to live."

"Are you coming back?" Christopher asks them.

"If you're willing to trade with us," Carol replies. "Although I don't know what we have to offer you. You have everything." They have enough gardens to feed a hundred men annually, and enough storage food to last the entire Alliance six months.

"We only have three men and three pregnant women left to tend it all," Christopher says. "There are probably eight kids who are old enough to help, but we have ten more children who need to be cared for. We're about to have three more babies. We _can't_ do it ourselves. We can't take care of all these crops and gardens, the cows and chickens. And we can't possibly protect ourselves if anyone finds us and wants to take what we have. Those of us who had guns when we got here…we left them as an offering to the Prophet, who told us to seek peace. We kept only our bows and arrows and knives to hunt."

"Them guns is all down there in the tunnels," Daryl says. "In that closet. Esau knows where."

"I know that. But most of the children and two of the women have never so much as _held_ a gun. There are maybe five of us who know how to use one, and we haven't practiced in years. If we were ever attacked, we'd be destroyed. There are so few of us now!"

Carol swallows guiltily. "I'm sorry for what you've suffered," she says quietly.

"If you really _are_ sorry, send some of your people to help work our plots, to serve as guards for our Temple, to teach us to shoot and kill and defends ourselves. They'll be well housed here. Well fed. And in exchange for sending them to us, you can also take a third of everything we produce here. You can take a third of what we have in storage."

"We ain't extortionists," Daryl growls. "'N we don't run a protection racket. We dealt with people like that. We ain't them."

Carol understands his gut reaction, but she puts a hand on his wrist. "It's not extortion, Daryl. He's proposing a _trade_. Labor, protection, and training in exchange for supplies and food. And he's right. They _can't_ do this alone."

Daryl chews on his thumbnail. "Gonna have to talk to the Alliance Council 'bout this."

"We have more than one community," Carol tells Christopher. "Perhaps we can bring you into our Alliance. Maybe we can send labor and watchmen and teachers. But we'll have to discuss it with the others. There's a meeting of our Alliance today. We'll return in a couple of days to let you know our decision."

Christopher nods.

[*]

The motorcycle may be Carol's, but she rides behind on the way back to the Hilltop. She buries her face against Daryl's worn leather jacket to guard against the cold December wind as he flies down the highway, swerving left and right to avoid debris and the occasional lonesome walker. When they roar through the gates of the Hilltop, the Alliance Council is already gathered around the great oak table in the mansion's dining room.


	69. Chapter 69

The representatives of the Alliance Council have just finished exchanging pleasantries when Daryl and Carol walk in to the dining room. Maggie sits at the head of the dining room table, opposite Ezekiel. Roland, Khalid, Rosita, Aaron, Cyndie, and Kathy fill out the table, along with a young, tan man Daryl doesn't recognize. Cyndie must read Daryl's lack of recognition, because she says, "This is Michael. He and his mother came across Oceanside ten months ago. He's been a great help to the community. I thought we should have some male representation."

Daryl nods to the young man. He can't be more than twenty-two, but, then again, Cyndie probably isn't older than twenty-four herself. That community went from being run by a grandmother to being run by grandchildren. Seeing them there, youth by youth, makes him feel like his world is fading and a new one is rising. But maybe that's as it should be.

There's only one empty chair at the table, so he and Carol both stand as they give their report on the Temple and convey Christopher's request to send laborers and teachers. He lets Carol do most of the talking.

"Whatever we decide here about this," Maggie says, looking around at the representatives of Oceanside and the Kingdom, "all _three_ of our camp councils back home will have to approve it."

Ezekiel nods solemnly, and Cyndie slightly, and they dismiss Daryl and Carol to deliberate.

[*]

When the couple exits the mansion onto the porch where Michonne is painting with Judith, the little girl demands, "My Daryl, look at my painting!"

He crouches down beside her and murmurs, "Good shadin'."

Michonne chuckles.

"That's you, my Daryl," Judith insists, pointing to a stick figure with an arrow sticking out over his shoulder. The hair on the head is light brown, but a scraggly, squiggled gray goatee covers the bottom of the stick figure's circle face.

"My hair ain't gray."

Judith reaches out and strokes his goatee. "It's brown and gray!"

Daryl frowns and Carol laughs. Daryl's stick figure is holding the hand – or rather the stubbed arm - of another stick figure in a dress. "And that's my Daryl's Carol!" the little girl announces, pointing. Never mind that Judith's never seen Carol in a dress and Daryl's only seen her in one once. Stick figure Carol is holding a knife in her free stub-hand, and the knife is dripping with red blood.

"That's an interesting use of detail," Carol tells her.

With his other hand, stick figure Daryl is holding a little stick figure girl's hand. "And that's me!" Judith insists. She points to another stick figure holding the little girl stick figure's other hand. "And Mommy!" Michonne has been drawn taller than anyone else, and there's a huge white smile that extends almost from edge to edge of her black circle face.

"Damn good," Daryl tells her. "How come Aaron ain't in the picture?"

Judith shrugs. "He's in Gracie's picture."

As Daryl stands from his crouching position, Michonne asks, "What did you find at the Temple?"

They fill her in briefly. "And now we're waiting to hear what the Alliance Council decides," Carol tells her. She looks at Daryl. "Should we go for a walk?"

"A'ight," he agrees. First, Daryl walks her to the smokehouse and shows her how well he's stocked it for the winter. Next, they pass by Sharon's butcher table, where she's at work on a deer. A fire burns in a barrel beside the table.

"Who got that?" Daryl asks.

"Andy, believe it or not. He's getting better. And Liam brought back the birds." She motions with her cleaver to five pheasants neatly lined up at the end of the table and awaiting her blade. "You never told me Roland wants to learn to be a butcher."

"How the hell would I know that?" Daryl asks.

She shrugs. "I thought Dr. Phil did research. Anyway, we had a good conversation about it when he arrived this morning. He said he wants me to teach him, that the Kingdom could use a second butcher."

"It's true," Carol says. "Our butcher's getting a little old. His hands are starting to shake."

"Well, I told him if he wanted to stay an extra night or two," she smiles, "I could talk him through the process."

They leave Sharon and continue their stroll. "She likes 'em," Daryl whispers when they're out of earshot.

"Who likes who?" Carol asks.

"Sharon. She likes Roland."

"And here I thought she liked _you_."

"Did. 'Til she found I's with you."

"Ah, so you _admit_ that now."

"She kind of told me," Daryl replies.

Carol raises an eyebrow. "Did she come onto you?"

"Nah. That ain't how it went. Backed off more like."

Carol reaches out and wraps her fingers through the fingers of one of his hands. "When she realized you were _mine_?"

He smiles. "Mhmhm."

"So you think Sharon's going to put the moves on Roland now, huh?"

Daryl shrugs. "She thinks…ya know…she ain't pretty 'nuff for 'em." Daryl shakes his head. "Fuck. 'M gossipin' like a girl."

Carol laughs. "You like Sharon."

"What? Nah!"

"I don't mean like _that_. I mean she's part of your community. She's one of your people. And you want her to be happy and to have someone. The way you're happy and you have someone." She squeezes his hand.

He ducks his head and smiles. "Maybe." Daryl raises her hand to his lips, kisses the back of it, and then lets go of it all together. They walk past the chicken coop and then on beyond some kids playing cards before a fire. They pass Jesus on watch on the fence line, wave up to him, and round one of the fallow garden plots before. Daryl stops at where Eugene is setting fire to something in a tin can in a circle of stones. "That the new stuff?"

"Bacon fuel 2.0," Eugene reports as he stands up from his crouched position and pours water from a canteen to put out the flames. "Burns slower and will deliver optimal efficiency for your biwheeled motor vehicle."

"It's called a motorcycle, Eugene," Carol tells him.

"When do you expect to complete your second prototype?" Eugene asks Daryl.

"Dunno. Gonna work on it this winter. Maybe ya can have more fuel refined for me come the first thaw, 'n we'll test it out."

"Duly noted," Eugene says with a nod.

The couple passes two boys fencing with sticks as their mother yells at them, "I told you two to take the trash and set it by the back gate! They're collecting for the burn ditch tomorrow!"

"Yes, ma'am!" one of the boys yells in reply, but he keeps fencing his brother.

When they return to the mansion, Michonne and Judith have gone inside, probably because it's too cold out here. The stairs creak beneath their boots as they mount them. They go inside, warm themselves by the library fire where a few people sit socializing, and wait to be called by the Alliance Council.

[*]

Daryl pulls out the one empty chair for Carol and then stands behind her at the table.

"The Alliance Council has agreed on a plan," Maggie tells them. "It's contingent on all three Councils confirming the decision, of course, and on the individuals involved agreeing to the arrangement."

"What arrangement?" Daryl asks.

Maggie looks away from Daryl and seems not to want to answer. So Carol looks straight at Ezekiel and asks, "What arrangement?"

"Not to sound too imperial," Ezekiel replies, "but, essentially, the Alliance thinks we should send people to settle at the Temple, and you and Daryl should serve as its governors."

"Didn't ask us to _rule_ 'em," Daryl says.

"They've been ruled by a mystery Prophet since the start," Khalid says. "They don't know how to rule themselves, and when they tried, it fell apart. They all would have died if not for you two. They asked for help for a reason."

"Don't wanna be no _governor,_ " Daryl spits.

Maggie rolls her eyes toward Ezekiel. "I told you not to use that term. It's got baggage."

"So I see," Ezekiel says.

Maggie looks back at Daryl and Carol. "You'll serve as _guides_. You'll teach them, train them, and eventually help them to establish their own system of government. You two would also serve on the Alliance Council, as representatives of the Temple, along with one person they elect to attend the Alliance meetings."

" _Settle_ at the Temple?" Daryl asks. "Ya mean…this ain't gonna be temporary?"

"All three communities will send settlers," Roland says.

"It would help with the overpopulation problem we have at the Hilltop," Maggie admits.

"And Oceanside is starting to feel pressure on our resources, too," Cyndie tells them, "with all of the refugees we've taken in lately."

Carol looks directly at Ezekiel again. "You don't think you need me in the Kingdom?" Daryl hears a hint of betrayal in her voice.

"I have needed you, old friend," Ezekiel tells her, "more than you know. But over time, I have also been blessed with many other competent advisors. The Kingdom flourishes, thanks in part to you. The Temple, however, will languish without you. My queen will fill your old spot on my advisory council."

"But, Henry…"

"We'll all keep an eye on him for you," Roland assures her. "But he's becoming a man."

Ezekiel leans forward at the table. "Henry will complete his schooling soon. Then he'll serve out his one-year apprenticeship in the Kingdom. After he's trained as a hunter and a fighter, we'll send him to settle at the Temple. They'll need more knights there, and hunters, too, more than just Daryl."

"Don't get this." Daryl looks at Maggie. "Ya didn't even want me to spend a winter in the Kingdom, and now ya want me to settle permanently at the Temple?"

"I don't _want_ it," Maggie says. "But it's what I think _needs_ to happen. We have Liam to hunt now. Andy and Lisa are getting better. We'll have fewer mouths to feed when we send settlers to the Temple, and you'll produce more food there than you need and share the excess with the Hilltop."

"And with Oceanside," Kathy pipes up.

"And the Kingdom," Roland adds.

"You know how to build a community," Maggie tells him. "You've been my right hand man for the three years I've been building the Hilltop. Your the man for this." She shakes her head. "And the truth is, sooner or later, I was probably going to lose you to the Kingdom anyway. This way, you're serving the _Alliance_ , which makes you a help to _all_ of us."

"Ain't leavin' Judith," Daryl insists.

Aaron speaks up now. "I thought you might say that. We spoke to Michonne before we called you in. We may have an experienced doctor in Siddiq, but the Temple has more medical equipment than we do. Running water. Electricity. They've clearly had a lot of successful live births, and you said one of the women there is a nurse and another is a midwife. It will be a safer place for Michonne to give birth than the Hilltop, and Judith will be among other children. They'll settle there with you. Michonne will teach the Temple children and help train the adults to fight."

"Who else do you want to send as settlers?" Carol asks.

"Me," Rosita replies. "Khalid and I are both stepping down from the Alliance Council and our camp councils to settle at the Temple."

"They need more guards," Maggie explains. "Watchmen. Warriors."

" _Knights_ ," Ezekiel corrects her.

Maggie ignores him. "Rosita and Khalid can serve those roles. We'll hold a special election next week to fill Rosita's spot on the Hilltop Council, and I'm appointing Jesus to fill her spot on the Alliance Council."

Ezekiel smiles across the table at Cyndie. "It's been drawn to my attention that the Kingdom is the only community with absolutely no female representation on the Alliance Council. So I'll be appointing Nabila to take Khalid's place."

"You're okay with this?" Carol asks Rosita skeptically. She's giving up all her political power at the Hilltop for a minor role at the Temple.

"I've had enough of politics," Rosita replies. "I just want to shoot and eat and work and fuck for a while."

Khalid smirks.

"If they agree," Maggie continues, "I'll also be sending two farming families. That will be four more adults to tend the Temple gardens, and three of their kids are old enough to work as well."

"I'm sending some of our refugees," Cyndie says. "Three women, two men, and two teenagers. They can all fish, and Khalid says there's a creek nearby the Temple that leads to a small lake. They can work in the gardens, too."

"We don't have the population pressures the Hilltop and Oceanside do," Ezekiel says. "But Carol will go if she agrees. Henry in a year. And Khalid."

"Ya ain't afraid to lose all this skill?" Daryl asks Maggie.

"The Hilltop will have twelve fewer mouths to feed," Maggie replies, "and additional food coming our way from the Temple. I think it's worth the price."

Carol cranes her neck to look back at Daryl behind her. His eyes meet hers with a question mark.

"Take some time to think it over," Ezekiel tells them. "We'll assemble again after dinner, and you can tell us your decision then."

[*]

Some people have taken their dinner inside the mansion to eat in the warmer dining room or by the library fire, while others crowd around a bonfire circled by picnic benches, eating from metal camp plates on their laps. Conversation and laughter buzz above the flames. Sharon has taken a spot beside Roland, and his head is bent as he converses with her. Maggie, who sits beside Carol on a bench, glances at them across the fire. "He works quickly."

"Did you expect him to pine for you forever in quiet celibacy?" Jesus asks from the other side of her.

"Well, no, but I thought maybe more than a few days." She takes a sip of water from her tin cup. "I guess I won't have to find a room for him tonight."

Daryl licks his fingers clean and then elbows Carol. "Ya done?"

She nods and stands and follows him back to his tent, where they wrap themselves in blankets and sit in the two camp chairs. They keep glancing at each other, but not saying anything. Finally, Carol asks, "So? What do you think?"

"Don't wanna leave the Hilltop. 'N that place is weird. Them people's weird. But…" He shrugs. "Sounds like the Alliance needs us. Gonna be some of my Hilltop people there. 'N…" His eyes search hers softly. " _You'll_ be there."

Carol smiles. "I don't like the idea of leaving Henry so suddenly. But Roland's right…he's becoming a man. And it's not like I won't see him again. He'll move there eventually. I'll miss the Kingdom, the people there…but I'll come back. I'll come back for Henry's graduation from school, and for our Thanksgiving feast. And this way...you and I can be together. All the time now."

Daryl chews on his thumbnail and then lowers it. "Guess Aaron's gonna end up Maggie's right hand now. Kind of liked bein' half in charge."

"You're still going to be half in charge," Carol tells him. "But of the Temple, now."

"Mhmm. Reckon so."

"And we'll both still be on a Council, it'll just be the Alliance Council now." She pulls the blanket more tightly around herself.

"Ya cold?"

"A little."

"C'mere."

Carol walks over and, with the blanket still wrapped around herself, settles in his lap in the chair. Daryl wraps his arms around her and presses his forehead to hers. "Gonna build somethin' together. Like we did back in the prison."

"Yes, we are." Carol kisses him. "But we aren't going to lose it this time."


	70. Chapter 70

Because the winter is setting in, they have to move quickly. Carol and Daryl return to the Temple the next morning to share the Alliance's plan with the Temple people. Most seem relieved by the news, though one the man, Joe, looks peeved. Carol assumes he still thinks that she and Daryl share some of the blame for the loss of his family members.

The Temple adults meet privately, and Christopher returns to tell them they'll accept settlers and welcome the guidance of the Alliance. "I've been elected by my people to serve with you on this Alliance Council."

A few days later, Christopher cuts off the corroded padlock and peels away the rusty chains that wrap six times around the gate of the Temple. For the first time in over four years, the gates are pulled open. It takes a lot of tugging and they creak loudly, but the Temple men pull them wide enough to let the settlers through.

Daryl and Carol roar Carol's bacon bike through the gates and over the faint dusting of snow that coats the paved driveway winding to the Temple. Two horses trot through next, pulling a cart jostling with Michonne, Judith, and the ten members of the two farming families. Heading up the rear of this pilgrim train are Khalid and Rosita on Khalid's horse.

"Welcome to your new home," Christopher tells them.

[*]

A five-person Temple Council is formed, with Daryl and Carol serving on it, along with Christopher, Esau's mother Rebecca, and Carolyn's husband Mark.

"Prophet ain't watchin' out for ya anymore," Daryl says at one of the Council meetings. "We're gonna have to watch out for ourselves. Time to assign a watchman to the roof, on a round-the-clock schedule."

"We won't be treating every stranger as an instant enemy," Carol says. "It's important to proceed with caution when someone stumbles on your gates, but sometimes they become useful members of your community."

[*]

Daryl curses and sucks the thumb he accidentally hit with his hammer. He's been working on his new bacon bike in a covered garage at the rear of the Temple that's been converted into a workshop. Here Mark, who is a carpenter, has been making wooden farming tools for the Temple and a crib for his expected baby, because the Temple has only three unused cribs and is expecting four newborns.

Mark's not here now, though, and Daryl is enjoying his solitary labor until he senses a presence behind him and turns. It's Joe, one of the three adult men who survived the poisoning. It's been four weeks since they all moved into the Temple, but Daryl thinks Joe is still wary of the settlers. He's a quiet, sullen looking man, a hard worker in the gardens who generally keeps to himself and watches the newcomers with suspicion.

Joe looks over the bike with curiosity. "You're making another bike?"

Daryl nods. "Mhmhm."

"Carol says hers runs on bacon grease?"

"Yeah. Refined bacon grease."

"You ever consider making it to run on pure ethanol?" Joe asks. "We grow corn here. Lots of it. Well…I suppose you know that. The Council plans the work schedule now. My point is…it's easier to get corn than pigs."

Daryl glances at the bike frame and then back at Joe. He hasn't started making the engine yet. "Might not be a bad idea," he says. "'Cept I don't know shit 'bout makin' ethanol."

"That science guy I've heard you and Carol talk about? Think he could do it?"

"Probably could." Daryl might even be able to get Eugene to move to the Temple. He'd certainly have a better laboratory here, though Maggie would fight losing him.

"I once built an engine than could run on 85% ethanol," Joe says, "but I've never done 100%. Cold starting is a problem. But I wouldn't mind trying."

"Yer a mechanic?" Daryl asks.

"I was. I haven't touched a vehicle since we shut the gates." He looks over the half-finished bike frame jealously. "Sure would like to get back into it."

Daryl jerks his head toward the bike. "Sure could use yer help," he says.

Joe grins, and just like that, Daryl thinks maybe he's made peace with the last holdout.

[*]

The Prophet's old radio transmitter has been given to the Kingdom, so Carol has been able stay in communication with Henry. When the pony express is up and running again in the spring, messages relayed by radio from the Temple to the Kingdom will written down and passed onto the Hilltop and Oceanside through the post.

"I think things are getting serious between Henry and Elizabeth," Carol says one night as she snuggles in against Daryl. All the decorative touches in their bedroom are hers except for two compromises she threw his way - the "damn girly" canopy has been taken down from off the top of their bed, and a pair of antlers now hangs from the wall above the writing desk - the trophy from his first winter kill in the woods outside the Temple gates.

"Yeah?" Daryl asks. "Must of been my sage advice."

Carol snorts. "I don't know about that, but I wouldn't be surprised if she moves to the Temple with him in a year or so when he's done with his apprenticeship."

She can see the wheels turning in Daryl's head - the Councilman's wheels, the planner's wheels, the mental wheels of a man who has finally learned to stay in one place. "What skills she got?"

[*]

Water drips from the ledge of the temple roof as the winter snow begins to melt away beneath the early March sun. It rolls down the white Temple walls in streams.

"I love this place," Rosita says when she comes to relive Carol on watch on the Temple roof. Because of the cold, they only serve 90-minute shifts. "Running water, electricity, even heat!"

Carol smiles and hands the binoculars from her. "How's Khalid?"

"I think it was just a twenty-four hour bug. He's fine now. Rebecca's a good nurse." She drapes the binoculars around her neck. "He's started talking about kids."

Carol raises an eyebrow.

"I told him no fucking way. This place is already crawling with kids and pregnant women. We don't need to add to that. And besides, we aren't even _married_. And then he says – we can rectify that."

Carol chuckles. "So? _Are_ you going to?"

"I don't know. You and Daryl aren't even married. I mean, not _officially_."

"I'm not sure we need to make it official." All the kids call her _Mrs. Dixon_. The Temple people have assumed they were husband and wife since the day they arrived, and neither Carol nor Daryl have ever bothered to correct them. They both just silently accepted the assumption.

"You don't want a big wedding?" Rosita asks. "Like Enid had? Like Ezekiel had?"

"Then we'd have to decide whether to have it at the Hilltop chapel or the Kingdom theater or here." Carol shrugs. "I kind of like it like this, the way we just eased into it naturally. I had a wedding once, and I had a formal marriage, and all that formality didn't make it a _true marriage_. I feel like I have that with Daryl. A wedding…at this point…I think it would just be after-the-fact."

"I can see that," Rosita says, and she takes over for Carol.

Carol finds Daryl working on his bike in a mostly empty meeting room down a hall off the foyer, a room he's more or less taken over and turned into a garage. He's turned into a garage. an abandoned storage room off , as usual in the late evening. It's almost complete. Joe isn't working with him this time, so she hands him tools for awhile as they chat about their respective days and the plans for spring planting and the next Alliance Council meeting.

"Do you think you'll ever feel at home here?" she asks him as he stands from his crouched position by the bike. He makes snide comments still about the pomp of the place, as if he can't quite allow himself the luxury, as if he doesn't deserve to be anywhere more comfortable than a tent at the Hilltop.

Daryl wipes his hands on a rag while his eyes flit over her face. "Home's where m'people are. Where _you_ are."

Carol wraps her arms around his neck. She's just kissed him when there's shouting from the foyer of the Temple, something about water breaking.

[*]

Two babies are born in the early hours of the morning. One of the Temple women, Carolyn, gives birth to a healthy, eight-pound baby girl. Michonne gives birth to a slightly premature but sturdy six-pound, mocha-skinned baby boy.

Carol attends her friend while the midwife runs from room to room, and she's even given the privilege of cutting the cord. Michonne names the baby Richard Carl, but Judith calls her little brother R.C.

[*]

Daryl surveys the scene through binoculars, because he's on watch at the moment. In the five months since they've been here, no one has approached the Temple. The gardens are in bloom. The Temple grounds are a colorful tapestry of fruits and vegetables and wildflowers. The sky, too, is bursting with colors, because the sun has just begin to rise.

Daryl turns at the sound of a sputtering, happy squeal. Carol stands there, with the orphan baby peering over her shoulder from the infant carrier. The little guy is getting big now, at eight months, but he still loves to piggyback Carol. Daryl leans over her shoulder and kisses the top of the baby's head, his lips pressing down on its soft, brownish-red hair. "Hey little man," he says. Then he kisses Carol on the lips. "Hey, little woman."

She smiles.

Carol offered to adopt the orphan baby when Carolyn gave birth to her newborn. It was clear the poor woman was going to be overwhelmed with two babies just a few months apart, especially since she also already had a toddler and a five-year old. The boy's name, given by his lost mother, is Grayson, but Daryl will probably never call him anything other than "little man."

Daryl takes the baby out of the carrier and holds the little tyke on his right hip. He turns out toward the sunrise and drapes his left arm over Carol.

They watch the red, orange, and yellow light paint streaks in the purple-blue sky as the sun rises slowly over the rear grounds of the Temple, over the new world they're building, the world they'll share together - the world they're adopted child will rule one day.

He squeezes her close with his arm, and says, "'S a new day, Mrs. Dixon. 'S a new day."

 **THE END**

 ** _A/N:_** I know some people really want me to keep going on this story, but I'm at over 165,000 words now! (How did that happen?) I just don't think I can sustain it with quality. I suppose this leaves room for the possibility of a sequel set a couple years in the future, should inspiration ever hit me. But if it doesn't, at least I've wrapped this up. I hate to leave a story unfinished. I hope you have enjoyed this journey! Thank you for reading and for commenting!


End file.
